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WAR MEMORIES 



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War Memories 



BY 

FRANK A. HOLDEN 

(2nd Lieutenant, 328th Inf., 82nd Division) 



With an Introduction by 

LUCIEN LAMAR KNIGHT, LL.D., F.R.S. 

State Historian of Georgia 






Copyright, 1922 
FRANK A. HOLDEN 



All Rights Reserved 



©Ci.A686591 

Published October, 1922 
BY 

ATHENS BOOK COMPANY 
ATHENS, GA. 



$2.00 Postage Prepaid 



OCT 30 72 



"^tt \ 



CONTENTS 

Page 

The Ex-Service Man 11 

I Want to Go Back 15 

Looking Backward 19 

Training Camp 21 

Camp Gordon 24 

Special Assignment ' 25 

Saying Good-Bye 27 

Would You? 31 

Mothers Never Forget 33 

The Trip Over 35 

Our Stay in England — 40 

France and Back of the British Lines 45 

Our Best Friend 46 

M. Lucien Jouffrett 51 

Our First Fatal Casualty.. 56 

Training 57 

A Little Music 61 

A Pleasant Move __-- 62 

The Doughboy 63 

French Coffee 64 

Our New Area 65 

To the Front 67 

Memories of Front Line Sector 77 

In Reserve -- — 82 

From Trenches to Palace Cars 83 

The Interpreter Gets a Call 86 

Back to the Front 88 



Burying Our Comrades 94 

My Greatest Thrill 96 

To Another Front -_ 97 

^'Soldiers Three'' 99 

Pont-a-Mousson 102 

A Long Night 110 

Paris Pleasures Suddenly End 113 

Out of the Stillness 117 

Norroy —121 

The Gas Attack 127 

A Long Ride 137 

The Argonne Forest -- 139 

The Sermon on the Hillside 142 

On the Roads -- 145 

Li the Little Valley 149 

On the Roads Again — 156 

The Roads Once More 164 

The Last Shots _- 169 

Anxious Hearts 174 

After the Storm 177 

A Trip Back 180 

Dad's Xmas Letter 181 

My Best Trip in France 185 

Christmas Eve Supper 188 

A Leave at Last, But — 193 

In Southern France 198 

Sergeant White 202 

Ten Months' Pay 207 

A Little Different 209 

Home, Sweet Home — 212 



INTRODUCTION 

One of the most delightful things in life is to be 
the herald of a happy event — the message-bearer of 
a welcome bit of news. The writing of this little in- 
troduction, therefore, is less of a task than of a priv- 
ilege ; for its purpose is to inform the public that a 
little volume which Americans have long been eager 
to read — have long been anxious for some one to 
write — has at last appeared. I make this statement, 
not without a due regard to the meaning of words, 
and not without some, nay, much, of the gratification 
which the old Syracusan philosopher must have felt 
when he exclaimed: ''Eureka! Eureka!" 

Here it is : — a little book which reflects upon every 
page the intimate heart-life of the American boy in 
France, during the World War — what he saw and 
felt and thought and did, not only in the great crises 
of battle ; but on the march and in the camp — setting 
forth the first impressions made upon a soldier's 
mind, under foreign skies, at the cannon's mouth, and 
revealing the fact that everywhere and always his 
thoughts w^ere of the dear ones at home, thousands of 
miles across the seas. 

It is like a mirror in its faithful reproduction of 
the simpler elements which enter into vast and splen- 
did scenes. We have heard much of general move- 
ments; of grand climaxes; of superb exhibitions of 
man-power, in the aggregate ; of millions, upon one 
side, confronting millions upon another; and so vast 
has been the picture presented to our minds that we 
have utterly failed to grasp it, except in its out- 
standing characteristics. We have heard too little 
of the human side of the great war — too little of 



the things whidi carry a direct appeal to the deep 
heart of America. We have been hungry for the 
minor details — for the smaller threads — for the frag- 
mentary episodes and incidents — for the rare and 
delicate and tender touches of color which are need- 
ed to complete the picture, and to give it beauty, 
pathos, power and charm. 

Ever since, in the lone solitudes of the night, we 
first began to wonder where our boys were, on the 
other side — if they were still safe — we have longed 
for such a book; and so far as our pensonal observa- 
tion extends it is the very first book of this character 
to appear in print, on either side of the water. The 
experiences of one soldier are not unlike those of 
another ; and every fond parent who reads this book 
will feel that his or her boy is writing, though it may 
be that his spirit now looks down upon them from the 
unseen halls of the Great Valhalla. 

The author has not attempted an epic. His little 
volume is not, in any sense, a romance of chivalry; — 
it is merely a little memorandum book in which he 
has penciled his recollections, while these were still 
fresh in mind, and to keep the bright tints from 
fading, as they Avere otherwise bound to do, with the 
lapse of years. There is no grasping after effect ; no 
hint of pedantry; no suggestion of melodrama; no 
obsequious ifanfare of trumpets. He follows tihe 
example of Othello, in "The Moor of Venice ;'' and, 
in spite of perilous encounters, in the imminent, 
deadly breech, hair-breadth escapes and moving acci- 
dents, both on field and on flood, he would still — 
"a round, unvarnished tale deliver." 

In a straight-forward manner, therefore, he nar- 
rates his story, beginning with tearful leave-takings 
and ending with joyful welcomes back to the home- 



land. Like a song-bird, in an English hav/thorn, he 
gives us the melody with which his soul is charged, 
and he pours it forth in an unpremeditated lay. 

Aeneas, at the court of Dido, in depicting the 
scenes of the Trojan War, makes use of the grandilo- 
quent expression: ''much of which I saw and part 
of which I was." He also calls himself the "pious 
Aeneas;" and he speaks of his renown as reaching 
above the stars — all of which, if true, might well have 
been left unsaid. The author of this book was the 
spectator of scenes far more sanguinary than those 
which were staged on the plains of Troy. He saw 
huge monsters of war which dwarfed the wooden 
horse to a mere insect; and he fought upon fields 
which decided the fate, not of a single empire, but of 
many, and which affected the whole future of two 
great hemispheres. Where the fighting was heaviest, 
Lieutenant Frank Holden was on hand. But his 
thought is never upon himself; and, with character- 
istic modesty, he seems to shun rather than to court 
the lime-light, even when compelled b}^ the exigencies 
of the narrative to use the personal pronouns. There 
is no offensive egotism. He puts aside the temptation 
to exploit himself, as he does the temptation to in- 
dulge in high-flown rhetoric. He is satisfied merely 
to inform the reader that he was there, and he wisely 
leaves to others the task of depicting scenes, which 
might have baffled a Dante or a Salvator Rosa, 

To those of us who live in the sunny latitudes of 
the United States, between the Savannah and the 
Chattahoochee Rivers, it is pleasing to reflect that the 
author is one of us — a Georgian to "tlie manner 
born." Pride of kinship and of old acquaintance 
surges warmly in our veins as we read the gentle 



narrative before us and realize at every turn of the 
story that while the author never indulges in heroics, 
he is none the less a hero. Five times recommended 
for promotion by superior officers, under whom he 
immediately served, and commended by them for his 
devotion to duty and disregard of personal danger, 
his record is one in which his family may well de- 
light and of which his friends, in every walk of life, 
are jusitfiably proud.* On September 13th last, in 
the State Democratic primary Lieutenant Holden 
was chosen one of Clarke County's two representa- 
tives in the State legislature of Georgia, leading the 
entire ticket. Of the total vote polled for repre- 
sentative of 2325 he received 1999, something almost 
unprecedented in a contest of this character. 

Lieutenant Holden is a scion of one of the State's 
oldest households, from both sides of which he is the 
inheritor of fine traditions which he has gallantly 
sustained. His father, Judge Horace M. Holden, has 
ably served on the state's Supreme Bench. His 
mother, who was a Corry, is a grand-niece of the 
Great Commoner, Honorable Alexander H. Stephens. 
Not only in accent but in action — in dignified de- 
meanor — in manliness of bearing — in every thought 
which gives an impulse and a character to conduct — 
he exemplifies the very highest type into w^iich our 
race has flowered — the Southern Gentleman. Those 
lines of Bayard Taylor are undoubtedly true to 
truth ; and they are happily illustrated in our young 
Hotspur : 

^'The bravest are the tenderest, 
The gentle are daring." 

As for this little volume, it is sure to lift the latch 
of many a home in America, and to tug at the heart- 



strings of thousands of readers. Though an unpre- 
tentious book, it may, for this very reason, and be- 
cause all unconscious of its mission, win a very definite 
and distinct place, if not an exalted one, in the liter- 
ature of the World War. Comrades of the author will 
read it, because its interesting pages recall the ex- 
periences which they all shared in common. It will 
appeal to libraries, because, in an unconventional way, 
it deals with a topic perennially fascinating and 
emphasizes qualities of hardihood, of endurance, and 
of soldiership which are peculiarly American; but, 
best of all, it will appeal to the firesides of the land, 
at many of which there are vacant chairs, and over 
all of which there are memories of sacrifice, of suffer- 
ing: aud of heroism. The fact, too, that the author 
comes of distinguished Confederate stock will help to 
strengthen the bonds of unity ; for his book is a 
noble contribution to the sentiment of a re-united 
country and of a people, now one forever. 

LuciAN LxVMAR Knight. 
Atlanta, Ga., September 15, 1922. 



*(Note). In the Officer's Record Book of Lieutenant 
Holden appears the following: 

"Argillieres, France, Feb. 25, 1919. Lieutenant 
Holden performed especiallj'- valuable service during the 
severe gas shell attack at Norroy, France, iSept. 14, 1918. 
His attention to duty resulted in fewer casualties in the 
regiment. 

Richard Wetherill, 

Col. 328th Infantry." 

"Lieutenant Holden was an officer in the second Bat- 
talion, 32 8th Infantry, for six months, joining just be- 
fore the regiment sailed from the United States. I 
commanded " the battalion during this period. I have 
twice recommended Lieutenant Holden for promotion. 
His service was characterized by marked loyalty, devo- 



tion to duty, disregard of personal danger and intelligent 
accomplishment of every duty assigned him. He has 
been a platoon leader, assistant battalion adjutant and 
battalion gas officer. As gas officer, he performed ser- 
vices during a heavy bombardment of gas shells in the 
town of Norroy on Sept. 14, 1918, which I believe 
saved the lives of many officers and men in his bat- 
talion. Lieutenant Holden's cheerfulness and fine 
enthusiasm were at all times in evidence and had real 
effect upon the morale of all ranks in his battalion. 
G. Edward Buxton, Jr., 

Lt. Col. Inf.U.S.A." 

"Lieutenant Holden from the time of his affiliation 
with the 3 2 8th Infantry has been assigned to H com- 
pany, 32 8th Infantry, except when on detached service. 
I have found him very diligent in his duties when con- 
nected with the company, inspiring his men at all times 
by his personality and bringing out the best in them by 
his devotion to duty and disregard of his personal safety. 
On October 8, 1918, when I was in charge of the bat- 
talion, Lieutenant IHolden was given the most dangerous 
and important duty of bringing food to the men of his 
battalion over a heavily shell swept road. This officer, 
realizing his very responsible position, labored day and 
night at this difficult task, and with marked intelligence, 
devotion to duty, and marked cheerfulness, succeeded 
in bringing the first food to the 32 8th Infantry in the 
Argonne fight. As captain of Company H, 32 8th In- 
fantry, I recommended him for promotion twice, and 
while acting as battalion commander I recommended 
him again. Lieutenant Holden, by ihis diligence and 
accomplishments has won a mark of high esteem from 
both the officers and men of the Second Battalion, 328th 
Infantry. 

J. M. Tillman, 

Maj. 328 Inf." 



THE American Red Cross was the last to 
wave us go|||!|H||||W^merican shores 
and the first to greet us in foreign lands. 
This cross was s^n on the fiel is of battle while 
the fight still ragfed, and on th< arms of first aid 
men as they rushed out to get the wounded; it 

ovHBie shell-torn roads; and it wavedi|H|il' 
liaflTsplendor from close up hospitals uhqer 
enemy fire. The Red Cross dressed the woudds 
of fa|jtt1^ nnr4 touched out feverist^HHHBKh 
thege jn and tendernt.s^ of a mother's 

hand. It's the Nearest thing Jcin to a mother's 
love. The rays of light whichlome from it are 
not unlike those which shine #om the Cross of 
Calvary. And ^^^^jmI forth today in 
peace time; it stii^^arne^n? 



To the 
American Red Cross 
this book is dedicated. 



PREFACE 



The ex-service man has little to say about his life 
in the army, but who knows how often pictures of 
the days that used to be pass before him? 

A boy in the city stares out of the office window, 
his ears deaf to the noise of the clicking typewriters. 
Pictures of far away France come before him and 
back to work he goes. 

In the crowded streets among the moving masses 
the ex-service man passes and crosses here and there. 
Memory pictures of the battlefields of France are 
flashing through his mind. 

Down in the corn field by the river a lonesome 
boy follows the plow. The stillness is broken now 
and then by a Bob White calling to its mate and the 
end of the row awakens the boy from his dreams 
of war days. 

What memories we have of it all! And before 
these memories are dimmed or faded I have written 
mine out, gathering many of the details from letters 
I wrote home. My memories are similar to those of 
hundreds of thousands of other American soldiers. 



You will find some sentiment in what I have writ- 
ten, but without sentiment the wheels of progress 
and march of armies would stop. I have given some 
of the human aspects of the war. There are many 
interesting incidents in the experience of numerous 
friends about which I would like to write, but which, 
for the lack of space, I am compelled to omit. 

The personal pronoun often occurs. This is not 
a history of the war but simply a narrative of my 
experience and that of others observed by me and 
when originally written was not intended for publi- 
cation. 



THE EX-SERVICE MAN 



IT was not until we were at sea, well on our way 
across the Atlantic, that we really began to think 
and wonder. We had been dazed and hypnotized 
by the grandest ''send off" ever accorded any de- 
parting soldiers in the history of nations. Every 
goodbye came from laughing voices. Forty-eight 
states bubbling over with goodbye smiles made our 
country one great blaze of sunshine. But now, way 
out on the deep, we came to ourselves, for we had time 
to think as we journeyed across. We began thinking 
of the days when the war would be over. My! 
would it not be wonderful when the soldiers returned 
after going so far away to fight ! 

After we landed in England and France, we began 
to appreciate our own country. Our thoughts, while 
in the trenches and while in rest billets and during 
that period after the Armistice when we waited and 
waited so long for our sailing orders, were often of 
what we were going to do when we got back to the 
New World. 

When we returned, the first few days at home 
were well-filled with greetings by the people who 
were glad to see us back safely. The first few nights 
at home were spent telling of our experiences and 



12 WAR MEMORIES 

showing souvenirs, if we were lucky enough to have 
brought an}^ home. 

But after that, w^hat ? We did not know or realize 
while overseas that most of our people back home 
had thrown everj^ ounce of energy they had into 
helping win the war. They had bought Liberty 
Bonds, had made drive after drive, woi'ked without 
ceasing for the Red Cross, and the various other 
organizations, and had denied themselves many things 
and made numerous other sacrifices of which we 
knew nothing. kSo while we were dreaming of the 
days when we w^ould arrive at our homes we never 
dreamed that we would return to a people who were 
war-sick and worn, too. Thus we did not enjoy 
telling our war tales as we thought we would and 
our people did not enjoy hearing us talk war as we 
expected. But back of it all there is something not 
to have been anticipated about the returned soldier. 
He is restless but quiet. 

We felt on our return "let down" and disap- 
pointed over something. What that something is, I 
do not know. I wish I did. We criticise no one for 
it. I would not go two blocks now to hear Lieutenant 
Rene Fonck, the French ace, tell how he downed three 
German planes in twenty seconds, or tell of his ex- 
perience in downing seventy-five planes officially 
credited to him, and the forty others that he claims. 



WAR MEMORIES 13 

I would not go two blocks to hear Sergeant Alvin 
York tell of how he killed twenty Germans and cap- 
tured one hundred and thirty-two, and I doubt if 
there are many others who would. 

At the age when we were just in the first steps of 
manhood, the time when we were beginning our life 's 
work either in the professional or business world, or 
on the farm, just at this most critical point in life, 
we gave it all up. We crossed the large body of 
water that w^e studied about in the primary grades 
at school, never dreaming then that we would ever be 
able to sail this big sea. Some of us saw one ship 
carry as many as ten thousand soldiers. Some of us 
saw army camps and railway systems and many other 
things established on a large scale in a short time by 
our government in a foreign land. Some of us saw 
sights of which we had never before heard ; saw hun- 
dreds of airplanes circling high over the front lines ; 
saw airplanes fight and watched them fall; saw ob- 
servation balloons go" up in smoke ; saw our friends 
killed and wounded; saw an entire division move 
over a hundred miles from one front to another in 
one day by trucks. Some of us saw Paris and most 
of us saw our great metropolis. New York. Seeing 
all these things and many more besides, being on the 
move most of the time, made us feel when we re- 



14 WAR MEMORIES 

turned to our ordinary routine duties, a ''let down" 
that was rather hard on some of us. 

Go through our western states and you will find 
many ex-service men who have gone there from other 
sections since receiving their discharge. Ask them 
why they are out there and they wdll tell you that 
they are restless and discontented. Of course, there 
are some exceptions. 

I know of a captain who went through the stiff 
training at the First Officers' Training Camp where 
he received a commission. He was in charge of a 
company ithrough eight mionths of the long and 
tedious drill schedules at Camp Gordon. He rode 
and hiked over many miles of England and France. 
He experienced over three months at the front in 
the Toul sector, he carried his company through the 
St. Mihiel drive, and a month later the German artil- 
lery wounded him as he w^as leading his men into 
the Argonne fight. 

This captain had all the adventures that American 
soldiers experienced, and yet Captain Will King 
Mdadow of Athens, Ga., was at work in his office a 
few days after he returned home and has been at 
work ever since just as if he had never heard of the 
war. 

Now you may say that is what all the ex-service 
men should have done. You are right, and it would 



WAR MEMORIES 



15 



be fine if they could do as Captain Meadow has done, 
and they would if they could. 

I know boys who never experienced any of the 
horrors of the fighting; boys who never even went 
overseas, whose stay in the army has unfitted them 
for their life's work which they had studied and 
prepared themselves for and they cannot settle down 
to such work. Some will get over this, but a great 
many will never outlive it; and where you will find 
one like this ex-captain I have just written about, 
you will find hundreds who are so restless that they 
are miserable. 

I WANT TO GO BACK 

Life sometimes seems rather strange and queer. 
We try to plan our future, what we would like and 
what we expect to enjoy and then everything turns 
out so differently. How we disliked to be in France 
during those weary months after the Armistice (ex- 
cept when on leave.) That was when we were wmt- 
ing so long to start back home, when the hours that 
dragged by seemed like days. But now ask the ex- 
service man how he feels about going back. More 
than likely he would say that he would like to go back 
in civilian clothes and see France in peace time. 

And now I want to go back. 



16 WAR MEMORIES 

I want to catch the largest steamer that crosses 
the Atlantic. I want to stand on the front and watch 
the 'big ship split through the waves and look out 
over the deep as far as I can see and have the con- 
solation of knowing that I am sailing through safe 
waters where I once sailed through troubled seas, 
with no dread now of the submarine lurking near, 

I want to go back and see the wonderful French 
people, the people that we called slow, the people 
with whom we would at times get provoked — ^yes, 
now I want to see them again. Their endurance, suf- 
fering and trials w^ere unequaled by any other nation 
that had a part in the war. The morale and high 
spirits they held throughout when the enemy was 
almost at the gates of the heart of their republic 
should always (be remembered as one of the greatest 
factors in winning the war. 

I want to go hack and see Paris during peace time. 
I saw the great paradise of pleasure seekers at a 
time when the outlook seemed dark and gloomy for 
the Allies, when the enemy was still gaining ground 
toward the city and the long range guns were 
registering hits inside its walls. I saw no signs of 
grief or despair or poverty in the city of millions 
during this great crisis. If their morale had broken 
and if their spirit had weakened then all the sacri- 
fices they had made and all the brave fighting of 



WAR MEMORIES 17 

their sons would have been for naught, and the 
Crown Prince would have had the pleasure of choos- 
ing from the many chateaux in the city a place for 
his mansion, and many more Americn boys would be 
sleeping far away from their birthplace. The bright 
and cheerful spirit of the French in their capital city 
cannot be praised too much. Now I want to go back 
and see this city again and be thrilled with its peace 
time gaiety and fun. 

I want to go back to the little villages where our 
battalion was billeted, in the back areas not far from 
the front. These little villages were almost deserted 
then. I want to see the same villages and see how 
they are getting back to normalcy. I want to see the 
few old inhabitants who stayed in these towns, the 
old men and women who were so nice and polite to 
us. I saw so many of them doing work that they 
seemed too old to do, as they were at an age when 
they should have finished their hard labors on this 
earth. I want to go back now and see them again. 

And, too, I want to go back to the battlefields^ — 
the frontiers of freedom. I want to go back to 
Xivray where I first went into the trenches. Once 
it was a village but then a mass of fallen buildings' — 
not a house standing in the town, and our trenches 
ran through the main street. I want to go back and 
be a,ble to walk through the village in day time and 



18 WAR MEMORIES 

then walk out into No Man's Land in broad daylight. 
I want to go back and go again on top of that high 
mountain, Montsec, that the enemy held just in 
front of Xivray. This mountain stood in front of us 
like a giant sitanding over a small boy and it was 
our horror for many months until captured in the 
St. Mihiel drive. For miles around the Germans 
could see every movement we made in the day time 
from their observation post on this mountain. 

I want to go back to Verdun and see the city 
once again where the French fought as no people 
ever before fought. From Bar Le Due hundreds of 
automobiles, trucks and taxicabs carried thousands 
of soldiers over the good military road to Verdun 
where they got out of these conveyances on the run, 
and rushed against the Germans with the ever living 
motto in their hearts, "They Shall Not Pass/' 

I want to go back to the village of Norroy and 
talk with the inhabitants that were hid in their cel- 
lars when we went into the town on the night of 
September 13, 1918, and delivered them from four 
long years of bondage and horror. 

I want to go back and ride over the roads in the 
Argonne Forest where for two days and nights I was 
under almost continuous shelling. 

But most of all, I desire to go back and see the 
graves of our ''boys who did not come back," 



WAR MEMMRIE8 19 

graves of our comrades who were cut down just as 
their life's work began. Their work is finished now 
and with their task well done let us hope that their 
monuments will ever stand as the last monuments 
of war, and that the light of their sacrifices will 
ever shine forth, not only for the present generation, 
but for generations and generations, for the millions 
yet unborn, forever and forever. 

LOOKING BACKWARD 

Now, I am thinking of the days to come, but later 
when I get to the age where one enjoys looking back 
over the road already traveled, more than looking 
ahead, I want to get out this little book and read it 
over and live once again the days I spent while an 
American soldier and recall to mind once again the 
pictures the details of which I may forget unless I jot 
them down now while they are so fresh. If you are 
still tired of war stories, when you have read this 
chapter, put this little book away on the shelf and 
maybe in the years to come it will fall into some 
old gray-haired World War veteran's hands and per- 
haps it will serve as some company and comfort to 
him in his old age as I expect it to be to me when 
I am in the evening of life. 

Of course, we had our trials and hardships, many 
long road marches with heavy packs, many long days 
and nights of home sickness, but of these things I 



20 WAR MEMORIES 

will not write much. When w^e recall the past our 
minds are usually filled with memories of the pleas- 
anter things in life. We soon forget our sufferings 
and so it is with our experiences in the war. When- 
ever you hear the old boys talk over their experiences 
together they iwill bring up something that will cause 
a smile or a laugh and even if something is said of 
that long march out of the trenches in the rain some- 
one will speak up and say : ' ' Yes, and you remember 
that old fat boy who left his equipment and had to go 
back a quarter of a mile and get it. ' ' We will laugh 
about it now but it wasn't funny then. 

I have never forgotten the talk the Dean of the 
Law School at the University of Georgia gave us the 
day before our graduation. He said that we were 
entering upon a profession of hard w^ork, worry and 
sometimes disappointment, and that our work in- 
volved the worries and troubles of others, carrying 
with it a great deal of responsibility. As we sat there 
on the eve of our graduation and heard this lecture, 
we could not help feeling a little blue. The more 
Professor Sylvanus Morris talked the bluer we got. 
Near the end of his lecture he paused and silence 
reigned through the room. ''Gentlemen," he said, 
''you will find that what I have just told you is true, 
but I wish to say this to you before you leave these 
halls. A lawyer may have all the worries and trou- 



WAR MEMORIES 21 

bles and responsibilities that I have just told you of, 
but there is one good thing about lawyers and that 
is they can have the darndest best time of any class 
or set of men on the globe when they get together." 
What he said I have always remembered and I 
have often times thought how it applied to the ex- 
service men. I can not talk interestingly about my 
good times overseas, but let me meet with an old pal 
who was over there and we can have the darndest 
best time of any two people that can get together. 

TRAINING CAMP 

On April 6, 1917, our freedom loving country, with 
over a hundred million souls far away from the 
horrors and sufferings of the great European strug- 
gle, declared war on Germany and entered into the 
great conflict which would make it a World War. 
Our country, with a small regular army, whose peo- 
ple had bled on their own soil in a war that had 
cemented them together, forming the greatest nation 
on earth, was now to throw its great forces of men 
and supplies into the struggle overseas. 

At this time I was practising law wdth my father 
in Athens, Georgia, just a few months out of a law 
school. The War Department planned many camps 
to be established for the purpose of training men to 



22 WAR MEMORIES 

officer the large forces the United States would throw 
into the war. One of these training camps was lo- 
cated at Fort McPherson, Atlanta, Georgia, to which 
I reported on the opening day, May 11, 1917. 

When my mother hung the service flag in my 
father's office there were two stars in it. Albon Reed, 
who had been practising law nearly two years with 
my father, left for the training camp the same day 
I did. Alibon was married and did not have to go 
but when the bugle blew he was with his friends in 
khaki and when the last shot in the World War was 
fired Captain Reed had fought with the 82nd Division 
in all its battles. 

Some who read this book may not know all whose 
names I mention, and some may not know any of 
them, but when I refer to a soldier by name, re- 
member it makes this little story real, and when you 
read of the boys I have mentioned there may appear 
in your mind a boy that you know — a friend of 
yours — perhaps your boy. 

The training camp was filled with men mostly 
from Georgia, Alabama and Florida. It seemed to 
me like a reunion of my old college mates as there 
were so many University of Georgia graduates in the 
camp. Little did we think while we were in college 
preparing to fight the battle of life that after our col- 
lege days were over so many of us would meet again 



WAR MEMORIES 23 

in another school, this time to train and prepare to 
fight a real battle of life — the battle tor world free- 
dom. 

Among these old college chums was Bob Griinn. 
Bob and I grew up together in the little village of 
Crawfordville, Georgia. There we played together 
long before we entered the first grade in school. We 
were freshmen together in college, room mates and 
class mates, and now we were in the training camp 
together in the same company, in the same squad, 
marching side by side in the drilling, and bunked 
next to each other. I never thought then that in a 
little over a year from that time this same Bob 
would write his mother the following letter from 
the famous Argonne Forest: 

''France, October 15, 1918. 
"I am right close up now. Am mingled all in the 
woods (forest) with the 82nd Division. Haven't 
seen Frank yet and poor boy I fear for him. I saw 
poor little Carl Goldsmith's resting place yesterday. 
Gee, but the boys are shot up bad." 

An exitract from another letter of Bdb's to his home 
folks two days later is as follows : 

"I know right where Frank's company is and I 
am going to it tomorrow and see w^hat has become 
of Frank. If I find him there w^ell and happy we 
will cable home of the happy reunion." 



24 WAR MEMORIES 

Men gathered in officers' training camps from every 
walk in life. Some had previous military training, 
some had never drilled a step. Some were paupers, 
some were millionaires. At night our tired bodies 
readily gave way to sound sleep ; at early morning the 
bugle started us on our daily grind. The closing 
hours of the day were refreshed by visits of rela- 
tives, friends and sweethearts at retreat. 

Three months of it! And then all but a few 
were commissioned officers in the United States 
Army; most of the few not commissioned attended 
second training camps and some of these were com- 
missioned higher than some of their associates in the 
firsit camp. 

CAMP GORDON 

We received our commissions on August 15th after 
three months of intensive training. I was commis- 
sioned a Second Lieutenant. We were given a twelve 
day leave at the expiration of which most of us were 
to report to Camp Gordon, Atlanta, Georgia. 

Camp Gordon was filled with men mostly from 
Georgia, Alabama land Tennessee. After five or 
six weeks training the majority of these men were 
transferred to National Guard Divisions in order 
to fill them to war strength and the last of October 
we began receiving men from the northern camps. 



WAR MEMORIES 25 

Thus the 82nd Division that proved later to be one 
of the big factors in making American history a;broad 
was undergoing intensive training with boys from 
the North officered by boys from the South. 

We had an unusually cold winter. The northern 
boys said they had often heard and read of the 
'''Sunny South" but really felt the cold more after 
their arrival at Camp G^ordon than they ever did in 
the North. It was cold and damp, which made the 
atmosphere most penetrating. 

Sometimes I think we over-trained or rather I 
should say we over-drilled. We had too much 
''squads right" and too little of actual war training. 
That was demonstrated when we arrived in France. 
My division was on the British front at first and 
we learned a great deal aJbout training from the 
British. We learned that the British soldiers were 
always full of pep. Drilling never became a bore 
to them, mainly because most of their training and 
drilling was conducted by playing games, thereby 
stimulating interest and competition. 

SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT 

I had been through the First Officers Training camp 
where we drilled through the hot summer months 
as much as we could stand. Then at Camp Gordon, 



26 WAR MEMORIES 

where reveille got us up with the sun, we drilled until 
the sun had run its day's course and were heartily 
tired of drilling. 

It was during the dinner rest hour (the last of 
March, 1918) that I received an order from head- 
quarters saying that Captains R. L. McWhorter and 
F. D. Fuller and Lieutenants Henry West, J. M. 
Burke, L, C. A'tkins and I were detailed as special 
instructors to aid Colonel Percy Trippe in training 
the University of Georgia (my University) students 
during their annual encampment at Gainesville, 
Georgia. You can imagine how glad I was when 
I received this order. 

'The first morning of the camp the students were 
assemlbled in front of the Riverside Military Acad- 
emy barracks and I gave them their first ''setting 
up" pxr-reises. 

I had stood during the four preceding years many 
times on the athletic field before the students of my 
University in the varsity uniform and had been 
thrilled through and through when the air all about 
me vibrated with thousands of hoarse yelling voices 
aided by the college band playing that grand old 
piece, ''Glory, Glory to old Georgia/' but this never 
thrilled me as I was thrilled that Monday morning 
when I stood before the students of my Alma Mater 
in the uniform of mv countrv. I noticed when I 



WAR MEMORIES 27 



called the men to attention I was looking upon a sea 
of stern faces. The happy smiling faces that are so 
charac^teristic of college boys were for a -while 
changed to serious expressions for they realized their 
country was at war. 

The camp ended on Friday. I went by home on 
my way back to Camp Gordon. Soon after my ar- 
rival my mother insisted that I should have my pic- 
ture taken in uniform. After the picture was taken 
she showed me a telegram from General Burnham 
saying that I was to report to tlie division without 
delay, which meant that I would soon leave for 
overseas. My mother w^ould not tell me that I would 
so soon leave for France until after the picture was 
taken. Just like a mother. 

When I reported back to Camp Gordon I received 
an order transferring me to the 328th Infantry and 
was assigned to the 2nd Battalion under Major G. 
Edward Buxton, Jr., (later Lieutenant Colonel) of 
Providence, R. I. 

SAYING GOOD-BYE 

So many boys never had the opportunity to have 
a '' good-bye talk with the home folks" before they 
left for France. 

A friend of mine, Ralph Flynt. of Sharon, Ga., 



28 WAR MEMORIES 

enlisted on April 2nd, 1918. In 18 days he was on 
his way to France. 

Ralph was assigned at Camp Gordon to my regi- 
ment, but I did not know he w^as in the army until 
aibout two months later when I saw him one night 
bringing food up to the front line trenches in France. 
He was with me in the Argonne drive and I watched 
him as we carried ammunition and food for two days 
and two nights over the almost continuously shelled 
roads of the Argonne Forest. And let me say here 
that the nearest thing I know to a perfect hell on this 
earth was the shelled roads in the Argonne Forest. If 
Ralph had received a year's military training he 
could not have been a better soldier. He was in 
France a month and a half after entering the service. 
When he left the 'States he did not know ''squads 
right" from ''right shoulder arms," but he felt he 
was a part of something great — the army of the 
greatest nation on this earth, and was filled with a 
determination and spirit to become a good soldier 
for he knew he was following the Stars and Stripes 
on a foreign battlefield representing a hundred mil- 
lion people who never heard and who will never hear 
the American eagle scream for help or see "Old 
Glory" trail in the dust. With this feeling in the 
hearts of the American doughboj^'s no wonder they 



WAR MEMORIES 29 



were soon able to meet in equal strife tlie best shock 
troops of Germany. 

The American boy needs but little training to make 
a good soldier. We need only a small standing army 
though we need a goodly number of trained offi- 
cers and non-commissioned officers. 

Ralph Flynt, as I said, was just one in many 
thousands of .boys who went over untrained but out- 
fought the Kaiser's trained forces. And he was 
one of the many thousands ^vhose ''good-byes" were 
received by letters after they arrived on the other 
side. 

But not so with me. I was very fortunate. Our 
happy family, my father, mother, brother Howard 
and sisters, Mary, Queen, and Frances, and I ate 
dinner together and soon thereafter gathered in a 
room at the Piedmont Hotel in Atlanta on the night 
of April 19, 1918, my last night in Atlanta before 
leaving for France. My brother w^ould occasionally 
break the silence by his humor but just before he and 
I left the room there was a long silence. You know 
without my telling you what this silence meant. 
After this silent prayer by all of us my motlher 
then prayed aloud askmg God to help me to do all 
that I could in the great fight for the right and if it 
b« His will to bring me back safe and well. We 
stayed in the room a few minutes longer and we all 



30 WAR MEMORIES 

seemed to feel so happy and when T left the room 
smiles had dried all tears. 

But I was to see them all once more (with the ex- 
ception of my hrother) because they left for home 
the next morning and that afternoon our troop train 
passed through Athens, Georgia, my home tow^n. The 
train waited there aibout ten minutes. Oh, what a 
flood of smiles and sunshine greeted us ! GrirLs threw 
their arms around my neck and kissed me, girls 
kissed me before their mothers and their mothers 
kissed me, too, then the last good-bye from my mother 
and sisters and the train started. 

But where was my father? All the time he was 
standing on the outskirts of the crowd looking at me 
and when the train started he came up to say his 
last words. He took my hand and as the train gained 
»peed he ran along with the train as long as he could 
and just before he kissed me and loosed my hand 
he said, "Good-bye and good luck. God bless you.*' 

My, I shall never forget that last picture, my 
father running along with the train as far as he 
eould until the speed caused him to drop out. 

What do you suppose I was thinking of the next 
fe-vv minutes? It Avas late in the afternoon, the time 
when we turn homeward, and my thoughts were of 
my father, mother and sisters. 

I was w^ondering what their thoughts were as they 



WAR MEMORIES 31 

Stood there at the station and watched the train as it 
grew smaller and smaller in the distance, and then 
as it rounded the curve and out of sight I knew they 
started home and that their thoughts were of me 
and of my leaving them perhaps for a 1-o-n-g, 1-o-n-g 
time — perhaps forever^ — and I wondered and thought 
about them. A year later at this same depot I fell 
into my mother's arms and I thought then, "I don't 
have to die to go to Heaven." 

WOULD YOU? 

A week or ten days then at Camp Upton. 

Most of the men of the 82nd Division were from 
the northern states. When we arrived at Camp 
many of our men were in twelve hours ride of their 
homes; many of them lived in New York City. 

The 82nd Division was located at Camp Upton, 
awaiting orders to entrain for embarkation to go 
overseas where men were in urgent need, and while 
there many soldiers left the division without permis- 
sion in order to go to their homes and tell the home 
folks good-bye, and in the meantime the division 
sailed leaving several hundred A. W. 0. L's. (That 
means absent without official leave.) 

Desertion in the face of the enemy? You may 
think so but wait; read further before you form 
any opinion. For six months some of these men 



32 WAR MEMORIES 

had not seen tlieir families. The men who lived 
in the southern states spent many week-ends at 
their homes and their families would come to the 
camp to see them. All Atlanta opened wide her 
homes to all the soldier hoys in her midst. True 
southern hospitality never shone more hrightly. But 
this was not like being in their own homes and seeing 
their own loved ones. The wives and parents of some 
of the boys from the northern states came South to 
see them but there were many whose parents were 
unable to make the trip. This is the picture behind 
the screen. Boys away from their homes six months, 
then brought back within a few hours ride of them 
and about to leave for overseas. 

Here's what these boys probably said to them- 
selves: "Wait a little while, I'll go away and fight 
with all my might, but I want to go to my home once 
more; I want to look into my mother's eyes once 
more and feel those loving arms around me; I want 
to talk with my dad once more ; these many years he 
has been my adviser, training me for the battle of 
life, now I want to have another long talk with 
him before I go into the real battle of life." Some 
wianted to see that "best girl" again and another 
perhaps wanted to see his young wife before leaving 
and in some instances ma^be the soldier boy wanted 
to press his child once more to his heart and per- 



WAR MEMORIES 33 

haps his child whom he had never seen, so when he 
crossed the big body of water and went into the fray 
he would have a vision of his baby w^ith the other 
loved ones at home when pictures that he loved so 
dearly came before his eyes. Would you have gone 1 
The hero in the novel might not, but I am no-t writ- 
ing a novel, I am writing real facts; I am writing 
about real boys, what they did in real life. Maybe 
the aching hearts that were yearning for a last good- 
bye would have pulled you, too, towards your home 
once more and then after waving good-bye you would 
have felt better and would have fought harder. Well, 
anyway, it didn't hinder the World War, for the A. 
W. 0. L 's, every one of them I think, reported back to 
Camp Upton and caught the next transport across 
the Atlantic and joined us upon their arrival over- 
seas. Yes, they w^ere punished a little by being 
given some extra duties to perform. 

MOTHERS NEVER FORGET 

I like to give concrete cases and you will j&nd a 
number of them throughout this book. Mrs. F. T. 
Oppice, a mother of one of the boys in my company, 
came to Camp Upton from Marshalltown, Iowa, to 
see her son before he left. Mrs. Oppice wanted her 
son, Roland, to go into New York City with her. 



34 WAR MEMORIES 

The (camp was crowded. The (hostess house was 
crowded most oi the time and she wanted to be :^ith 
her son alone sometimes; then, too, knowing that he 
was leaving she, like all onr mothers, wanted to do 
everything for her son's pleasure. But Roland's 
pass had been turned down. Only a certain percent- 
age of passes could be issued to a company and the 
percentage allowed our company had been issued. 

Roland introduced his mother to me and after see- 
ing how she wanted her son to go into the city with 
her I got busy. In fifteen minutes I had Roland's 
pass properly issued and signed from headquarters 
and he and his mother went awaj^ rejoicing. 

But that wasn't all. Some people sometimes for- 
get the kindness that others show them, but never 
did a mother forget any little kindness shown her 
soldier boy. Mrs. Oppice secured my home address 
from her son. About two months after I arrived 
overseas a letter from my mother said that she had 
received a long nice letter from Mrs. Oppice telling 
how much she appreciated what I did for her and 
her boy at Camp Upton. 

Roland and I were in the same company. A 
correspondence between our mothers continued while 
we were in France. Many letters went to Georgia 
from the Iowa mother saying, ''Have you any news 
from our boys lately? Have you heard anything 



WAR MEMORIES 35 

from the 82nd Division since the drive started?" 
And similar letters from the Georgia mother went to 
Iowa and sometimes their letters passed each other 
in the mail on their journeys. 

On the night of April the 26th, my last night in 
New York, while in the lobby of the McAlpin Ho- 
tel, I was very pleasantly surprised to meet my 
cousin, Mr. E. D. Anthony of West Palm Beach, 
Florida. He spared neither time nor money in con- 
tributing to my pleasure, and my last night in New 
York before leaving for France is very happily re- 
membered. 

As we "were marching away to board the train for 
embarkation I saw Mr. and Mrs. L. B. Joel, of At- 
lanta, Ga., waving a last good-bye to their only boy, 
Lieutenant Y. Lyons Joel, one of the lieutenants in 
my compan3\ It was reall}^ a last good-bye, because 
their brave boy never recovered from a wound re- 
ceived in the Argon ne. 

THE TRIP OVER 

At 2 :00 A.M. on May 1st, our troop train reaehed 
the harbor at Boston and we quietly detrained and 
went aboard the Scandinavian, a British ship. As I 
walked from the train to the ship, I was thinking of 
the folks at home and of the long journey ahead of 



36 WAR MEMORIES 

me, wondering how long I would be gone — wonder- 
ing if I would ever come back. A drizzling rain as 
we embarked helped to make our feelings gloomy and 
everything look dismal. 

From the Boston harbor, we sailed down to the New 
York harbor where we lay at anchor awaiting orders. 
On the morning of May the 3rd, w^e started across the 
Atlantic w^ith sixteen ships in our convo.y. The six- 
teen ships like one big family stayed together all 
the way across, not one getting out of sight of the 
others. Some days the sea was as calm as the Po- 
tomac and other days the big waves splashed over 
the deck. We had the battleship San Diego with us 
most of the way. When we reached the zone most 
frequented by the submarines the San Diego left us 
for the 'States because it was not built to fight sub- 
marines. It was destroyed two months later. 

There were orders against throwing anything over- 
board. A cigar or cigarette stump floating here and 
there on the waves would be strong evidence to the 
submarines that a transport was nearby. Some nights 
the fog w^ould he so dense that the sixteen ships 
would have to blow their whistles every few minutas 
to avoid a collision. It seems as if I can hear the 
fog horns now as I heard them during those anxious 
nights in May, 1918. What a mournful noise to 
go to sleep by — a noise like that of frogs chiming 







.>.> 



WAR MEMORIES 37 



in a lonely far away swamp. And before we closed 
our eyes in sleep we did not know but that we would 
awake on the dark cold ocean waves. Several tor- 
pedoes sent through our convoy would have reaped 
a great horror. Some Red Cross nurses would have 
gone down with us. Can there be anything more 
horrible than WAR? 

Already a friend of mine, Allen R. Fleming, Jr., 
from my home town, had gone down just a few weeks 
before to a watery grave, but I did not know of it 
then. He was killed by the explosion of a depth 
charge when the United States ship ''Manley" col- 
lided with a British naval vessel, March 19, 1918. 

We had regular drilling hours on the boat, though 
the drilling was confined mostly to setting up exer- 
cises and lectures. Each company had different 
drilling hours as all could not get on decks at one 
time. About the third day out, after I had dismissed 
my platoon I stood about fifteen minutes watching 
the tossing waves as they splashed against the sides 
of the boat. I then started to my state room. On 
my way I passed a captain lecturing to his men. 
The clear-toned voice, the manly delivery and the 
eloquent words arrested my attention. He was not 
explaining the various parts of the rifle nor drill 
movements nor tactic formations. No, these things 
had been explained time and again and these move- 



38 WAR MEMORIES 

ments had been executed over and over. His talk 
was a heant to heart talk to his men, a talk that held 
them spellbound; the kind of a talk that American 
soldiers appreciated. I listened until he finished and 
went away feeling as if I had profited by it. When- 
ever I saw this captain after this I thought about the 
magnificent speech I heard him make to his men. 

Now I want to take you a month or more ahead 
of my story so as to finish this little episode. The 
first of July we were occupying the front line 
trenches in the Toul Sector. This captain led a 
patrol one night. He was an able and conscientious 
officer, but for some reason he took several swallows 
of brandy before going out on the patrol. It made 
him intoxicated. While on the patrol in No Man's 
Land, near the German front line trenches he made 
a lot of noise by loud talking which imperiled the 
safety of his men. His men were brave boys but 
they did not care to be surrounded by German ma- 
chine guns. Finally his men got him back in our 
lines. Two officers w^ere sent to investigate and re- 
ported that the captain w^as too drunk to put on a 
gas mask. He was in a stupor in his dugout. The 
next morning he was put under arrest and the nec- 
essary charges were preferred against him. The court 
sentenced him to dishonorable discharge and ten years 
at Leavenworth but unanimously recommended 



WAR MEMORIES 39 



leniency. The Commander-in-CTiief revised the sen- 
tence to reduction to the ranks. I understand that he 
made a touching talk before the court, asking that 
they place him back in his own company as a private, 
saying, ''In No Man's Land I have disgraced myself, 
in No Man's Land will I defend myself." They 
placed him in our regiment but not in his old com- 
pany thinking that would be too much of an em- 
barrassment for him. Did he redeem himself, you 
are no doubt asking? He led patrols way into the 
enemy lines, while in the Toul sector, he rendered 
valuable work in the St. Mihiel drive and his service 
in the Argonne was brilliant. He would go out by 
himself and bring back German officers' helmets and 
pistols and other evidences of his bravery but one 
day he went too far, one day the steel of the enemy 
took his life and he was laid to rest besides the 
many others of our regiment in the graveyard at 
Chatel Ohehery. 

Lots 'of interesting things happened b<efore we 
landed. When we got into the danger zone we slept 
in our clothes with our life belts tied around us. 
Occasionally we w^ould get a wireless that a subma- 
rine had been sighted at a certain point and if it 
was near by our ships would start a zig-zag course. 

We were all anxious to know where we would land, 
but the Captain of the ship did not know himself 



40 WAR MEMORIES 



until the sulDmarine chasers met us off the Irish coast 
and gave the Captain his landing orders. The de- 
stroyers knew where the submarines had been re- 
cently sighted, so they knew where it would be safer 
for us to land. We landed in Liverpool, May 16th. 
We weren't through dodging submarines though, as 
we had to cross the Channel. 

OUR STAY IN ENGLAND 

We were very fortunate to have landed at Liver- 
pool, for this enabled us to travel through England. 
It was twilight when we marched off the boat. Soon 
we were on our w^ay to a rest camp on the outskirts 
of the city. 

We marched through the residential section. On 
our occasional halts for rest, people would stop and 
talk to us. An old man shook my hand and told me 
how glad he Avas to see us. He meant every w^ord of 
it. The German drive which started on March 21st, 
and the succeeding drives of the common enemy had 
cast a gloomy cloud over England and the sight of 
healthy, husky Americans streaming through their 
country to the western front was a glorious spec- 
tacle to our British friends. It made them forget the 
years gone by when we whipped them for our inde- 
pendence. 



WAR MEMORIES 41 



We were at the rest camp only a couple of days 
when the order came for us to entrain for South- 
ampton. When we marched down to the depot and 
saw the train that we were to board we could not 
help but comment on the engine and coaches, which 
were small in comparison with those on our great 
railway systems. The small engine and coaches re- 
minded me of little toy trains. We saw many other 
things that demonstrated how we had surpassed in 
many respects our mother country. 

So we started our day's ride from one port town 
to another — ^Liverpool to Southampton. ''Beautifur' 
and '' picturesque" fall far short of describing the 
scenery that we saw as we journeyed through Eng- 
land. The beautiful little castles nestling among the 
green hillsides and the herds of sheep grazing in the 
valleys made pictures of ideal beauty, pictures that 
linger now in my memory when I think of England. 

While enjoying this ride across England I was not 
aware of the fact that a fellow townsman and class- 
mate of mine was buried somewhere in the beautiful 
country I was admiring. Lieutenant Robert J. Grif- 
fith was killed just a few weeks before this, May 
9th, in an airplane accident. And from that time on 
I have heard of many of my friends who gave their 
lives in the World War, and even at this late date 



42 WAR MEMORIES 

occasionally I hear for the first time of some one I 
knew who died in the service. 

About noon our train stopped in a little city for 
twenty minutes and we were served hot tea and 
sandwiches. As I had expected, the tea was sugar- 
less, but I was prepared for it. Just before I left 
Camp Gordon, Professor and Mrs. S. V. Sanford of 
Athens, Ga., received a letter from their son, Lieuten- 
ant Shelton Sanford, ( who was among the first to go 
overseas) saying that it would not be a bad idea if 
the boys just leaving for France would bring a little 
sugar with them. Mrs. Sanford mentioned it to my 
mother wlio told me about it in one of our conversa- 
tions over long distance telephone while I was at 
Camp Upton. Lieutenant Joel and I bought five 
pounds of lump sugar in New York and it came in 
very handy. 

Upon our arrival at Southampton we marched to 
another rest camp. The second day there each man 
was given an autographed letter from the King. I 
sent mine home. 

Here's a copy of the letter: 

''WINDSOR CASTLE. 

iSoldiers of the United States, the people of the 
British Isles welcome you on your way to take your 
stand beside the armies of many Nations now fighting 



WAR MEMORIES 43 

in tlie Old World the great battle for human freedom. 

The armies will gain new heart and spirit in your 
company. I wish I could shake the hand of each 
one of you and bid you God speed on your mission. 

GEORGE R. I. 

April, 1918." 

King George is all right, but he certainly liked to 
have his picture taken. I saw^ his picture in papers 
and magazines while overseas oftener than I saiw 
the picture of any of the other prominent men. Most 
of the pictures I saw of the King showed him deco- 
rating a hero for gallantry in action or devotion 
"above and beyond the call of duty" and I liked to 
see such pictures. 

The King was a busy man, frequently reviewing 
his many troops from different parts of the world. 
On his dominions the sun never sets and over 
400,000,000 people recognize the sovereignty of his 
crown. I do not blame him for feeling proud of his 
great Empire. And thanks to the old King's navy! 
It saved thousands of us from a watery grave. 

While in Southampton I wrote the following let- 
ter: 

"Somewhere in England, May 19, 1918. 
Dear home folks: 

Yesterday several of us tried to hire a car for an 
hour for the purpose of seeing the city. The taxi 
driver laughed at us and stated that there had not 
been any sightseeing or joy riding in England in 



44 WAR MEMORIES 

over two years. He said that he could carry ns to 
catch a train or visit the sick or to meet some im- 
portant biLsiness engagement. None of these thingvS 
fitted our case, so we saw the city on foot. 

Today is a beautiful day. One of those quiet Sun- 
days. Sometimes I forget I am so far away from 
home. 

It's at the close of day, at sunset, when everything 
is calm, still and lonely, that I think of home most. 

I feel confident that I am going back some day, 
but if I should not please do not grieve for me, but 
feel good and proud that you, too, have contributed 
to a great and worthy cause. 

With a heart full of love, 

FRANK." 



As I was writing the above letter the boats were 
waiting nearby in the harbor to carry us across to 
France and the next night we were again in troubled 
waters — the English Channel — a regular ship grave- 
yard. So the popular report that circulated at Camp 
G^ordon before we left that we would train for three 
months in England was, as many of the rumors that 
soldiers frer|uently hear, not true. We did train 
somewhat in France before we went into the trenches 
and drives, but it was just in rear of the battle 
fronts. 



WAR MEMORIES 45 

FRANCE AND BACK OF THE BRITISH LINES 

We were in England barely a week. On the af- 
ternoon of May 20tli, we changed our English money 
into French money and that night we loaded on 
small boats and crossed the rough English Channel, 
arriving at Le Havre, France, very early the next 
morning. 

I cannot describe the peculiar thrill I had when I 
stepped upon French soil. The first thing my eyes 
fell upon was a hospital train of wounded British 
soldiers waiting there in the port to be sent back to 
England. It was England that had suffered most 
in the recent German drives and thousands of Brit- 
ish soldiers were then sleeping in Flanders field. 

We marched through the streets of Le Havre as 
we marched through the streets of Liverpool a week 
befoTe. I think every house and show window had 
French signs on them and as we marched through the 
heart of the city the only familiar sign I saw was 
the one which had on it the word ' ' cafe. ' ' 

The French people could not come up and tell 
us in our tongue as the English did how glad they 
were to see us, but they all waved as we marched by 
and the appreciative expressions of delight that beam- 
ed from their faces told us more than words could 
express. 



46 WAR MEMORIES 



Way back in 1777 LaFayette landed on the shores 
of America and offered all he had for American in- 
dependence. War clouds were hanging thick and 
dark over us at that time hut the landing of the 
"Apostle of Liberty" brought new cheer and spirit 
to our then disheartened and depressed soldiers, and 
now nearly a century and a half later if the spirit 
of the dead watches over the living he saw us bring- 
ing joy and hope to his people and joining France 
and her Allies in battling for her liberty and freedom 
and that of the world. 

We marched to our rest camp on a hill near the 
city. Our stay here was short, too. Man power now 
meant the salvation of the Allies. Emergency is the 
best word to express the critical stage of the war at 
this time. The next move the German High Com- 
mand would make was a puzzle to our leaders. It 
was not known then but that he would immediately 
begin another drive for the Channel ports or per- 
haps a direct drive on Paris. Consequently eight 
American divisions were rushed back of the British 
front. 

OUR BEST FRIEND 

The second day w^e were camped out on this hill 
we left just after dinner on a long hike. I remem- 
ber how awfully hot was that day. It was seven 



WAR MEMORIES 47 

miles out to where we were going. When we got 
there we w^ere introdueed to what proved to be our 
best friend in Prance' — a gas mask. After receiving 
the mask we gathered around a big Scotchman and 
he proceeded to tell us something about our best 
friend. In short he told us that the British ga.s 
mask that we were going to carry with us into action 
was a mask that would be an absolute protection 
against any and all the German gases, and that the 
deadly gases that we would draw through the chemi- 
cals would enter our lungs pure air. After the 
Scotchman's talk we had unshaken faith and confi- 
dence in our masks, and we never separated from our 
best friend while near the front. 

Then we started our long, hot and dusty march 
back to the camp, getting back about supper time. 
That night we were allowed to go down into the 
city of Le Havre. One officer from each company 
had to stay in camp and there was some dispute a.s 
to whether it was Lieutenant Brown's or my time 
to stay with our company. We finally decided it 
with the flip of a coin and fortunately I lost. I felt 
bad as they were leaving but in a little while after 
they left one of the blackest clouds I have ever seen 
came up, and then I was glad I did not go. 

I went into the officers' tent which had in it vic- 
trolas, pool tables, writing desks, and many other 



48 WAR MEMORIES. 

things affording comfort and pleasure for us. In a 
little while it began to rain. Have you ever noticed 
how lonesome it makes you feel sometimes when you 
are far away from home and it begins to rain? I 
was unusually homesick that night, but after I start- 
ed a letter to my mother I felt much better. Here's 
a paragraph from the letter I wrote that night: 

"I want to see you mighty bad tonight and I feel 
as if I will some day. Somehow, I don't feel as if 
I'm so far away from you, and I'm glad I feel that 
way, but I miss you terribly. I made up my mind 
to write you exactly how I am getting along. I think 
you are entitled to know, and so far all my letters 
have expressed my exact feelings. Tonight, I'm a lit- 
tle homesick, naturally so, why shouldn't we be at 
times? And if I said that I never get homesick you 
would know better. I decided the best thing I could 
do would be to write to you and now I feel all right. 
I get so m-uch pleasure and comfort in writing to 
you and Papa and the other members of the family. 
Nofw when you want to see me real bad, just sit down 
and write me, and that burning feeling in your heart 
for me will go away, as it does in me when I write 
to you while wanting to see you so bad." 

On the afternoon of the 25th we marched down to 
the station at Le Havre and there boarded a long 
troop train, and that night we started, we knew not 
wliere, only we knew that we were still making our 
way nearer and nearer the fighting. We rode all 



WAR MEMORIES 49 

night in those dark coaches arriving ahout day at a 
small station nameid Eu. Here we detrained, ate 
breakfast and each battalion marched to small vil- 
lages. We hiked about 12 kilometers to the little 
town of Tilloy-Flourville. 

This town was not very far back of the Somme 
front. The village looked deserted, but there were 
quite a few old people living in the town. When the 
old lady showed me the room that was assigned to 
me, she pointed to a picture of a French soldier that 
hung over the mantle, and shook her head slowly and 
said, "La Guerre." She saw I understood. And 
after that in other little villages I saw other good 
old French women point to "pictures on the wall" 
and give a sigh which told me that somewhere on the 
long western battle front, the original of the picture 
had fought and died for France. Suppose that it was 
our soil that had been invaded, our homes that had 
been crushed and piled into wreckage, and the sons 
of France had come to our rescue as the boys in 
khaki rushed to France, then our mothers would have 
'been pointing to pictureis on the walls telling the boys 
from aero'ss the seas the sad tale that was told to us. 
We will never know or realize all that France suf- 
fered, but we love her with a love that cements us 
together so strongly that I hope down the ages we 
will go hand in hand forever. 



50 WAS MEMORIES 

Nearly every Sunday I would write a long letter 
home. All of them w^ere saved. A part of the one 
I wrote from this little village Sunday morning, May 
26th, is as follows : 

"I think, long and dream of the days to come, wtien 
I get back home. How happy I'll be, and how I am 
really going to enjoy living — just living at home — 
that is all I wish. I am very comfortably situated, 
I have a room in a nice large home, a beautiful 
French home, and the sweetest old lady lives here in 
it all alone. This is a quiet, quaint old village, very 
beautiful — the old church sits across the street, older 
probably than any church in America. The people 
are going home from church now and I can hear them 
talking, but not a word do I understand. I have 
a front room with two large window\s opening on the 
street. I offered the old lady here in the house some 
money for bringing me some water and she refused it, 
then I offered her a few lumps of sugar and she took 
them gladly and willingly. 

Have had very few hardships, little inconveniences, 
that's all. I wouldn't feel right if everything went 
along smoothly; in fact I would be disappointed, 
because war as you know isn't a play thing. The 
harder time I have, the more I'll enjoy and appre- 
ciate life when I get home, so all I'm doing now is 
sacrificing present joys for future joys. The civilian, 
as a rule, pictures the hardships of war as just death 
and mutilation, but there are others, for instance, 
being deprived of many comforts and pleasures. But 



WAR MEMORIES 51 



SO far our hardships have been little, and we are all 
in good spirits. 

I censor the mail of my platoon. They all sipeak 
of how far England and France are behind the Unit- 
ed States and they are right. Some of these old 
houses are hundreds of years old. Many of them 
have their barns built onto their homes and I can 
step out of the parlors and dining rooms into the 
barns. These are the homes of the little village 
people. But the fine chateaux of the rich are much 
prettier than our millionaires' homes." 

M. LUCIEN JOUFFRETT 

We started a course of intensive training here. 
Captain Tillman rearranged our company (Co. ''H," 
328 Inf.) and I was given the third platoon. I did 
not have much time with my platoon because as you 
will see later I had many other assignments, such as 
Town Major, Acting Battalion Adjutant, Battalion 
Gas Officer, Ammunition Officer, and Officer in Charge 
of Combat Train. 

When the Americans began to arrive in France 
we needed someone to help us in our billeting in the 
French cities and towns. French interpreters were in 
great demand. While we were in Tilloy-Flour- 
ville, we were very fortunate to have M. Lucien 
Jouffrett assigned to our battalion as interpreter. 
We all became attached to him. He was over fifty 



52 WAR MEMORIES 



years of age but he never weakened in the many long 
marches he and I made together over the French 
roads. He was wounded and captured early in the 
war and escaped and gave his General some valuahle 
information about the enemy for which he was cited. 
His peace time occupation was that of a Paris banker. 
Rarely a day passed that he did not speak of and 
write to his "dear" wife and baby. 

Our Greneral wanted us to get the experience of 
moving from one town to another. I received the 
following order the 31st of May: 

'^ Headquarters, 2nd Battalion, 
328 Infantry, May 31st, 1918. 

Memorandum : 

1. Lt. Holden, Co. H., M. Lucien A. Jouffrett, and 
one N. C. 0. from each company will proceed at 
1 :00 P. M. today. May 31st, 1918 to Monsboubert by 
marching. Full equipment and rations for one day 
will be carried. Baggage will be left at these head- 
quarters to be forwarded by transport. They will 
locate the billets occupied by the out-going battalion 
and be prepared to conduct troops to their billets on 
arrival. 

Battalion Headquarters, Infirmary, Kitchens, Sta- 
bles for horses, location of incinerators, and latrines 
will be located. 

BY ORDER OF MAJOR BUXTON. 
J. A. Woods, 
1st. Lt., 2nd Bn., Adjutant." 



WAR MEMORIES 53 



A few hours after we received this order the old 
interpreter, a non-commisslioned offiee'r from eadh 
company and I started on our hike to Monshouhert. 
There were a few inhabitants in each village through 
which we passed. Our progress was slowed some- 
what when we passed through these villages as the 
inhabitants would always have something to say to 
our interpreter and he would stand and talk to them 
until I called him. After several stopped him I 
asked what they wanted. He said that they all asked 
him the same question and that was if he had any 
late news from the war. It was something new for 
the French people to see American soldiers and they 
thought they might learn something from our inter- 
preter as he was with American troops. 

Thoughts of the marching on these roads remind 
me of a little incident that happened the first night 
I arrived home. This is far ahead of my story but 
I will relate it now. I had talked some little time 
to the home folks and then my trunk was brought in 
and I opened it and began taking out souvenirs — 
shell vases, wooden shoes, statues, lace, and many 
other little things that I had bought. Then I came to 
a package wrapped up in a lot of paper, 

''What is that?" my mother eagerly inquired. 

I unwrapped it and held up a pair of old hob 
nailed shoes. Thev were hard and stiff and the hob 



54 WAR MEMORIES 

nails had worn completely off in some places and 
worn slick and half off in other places and both 
shoes had big holes in the soles. Thig brought the 
first tears from my mother. I guess she had a picture 
of me marching in far away France and she pressed 
the old rough shoes to her breast and just looked at 
me as the tears rolled down her cheeks. Yes, they rep- 
resented many miles on the hard graveled roads of 
France, and thej^ were the same shoes that covered 
my cold and wet feet through many miles of march- 
ing over there. I saved them to bring home with me 
when I received a new pair. But let's go back to 
France. 

When we arrived in Monsboubert, much to my 
pleasant surprise I found that Bob Gunn's bat- 
talion was in the town. We had not seen each 
other since we left the States. He and I were life- 
long friends, so just imagine two old pals meeting as 
we did, Bob's battalion was leaving the next day to 
make room for our battalion. We were certainly 
glad to see each other. We had supper together in a 
little French cafe and I can see Bob now enjoying 
those wonderfully cooked French fried potatoes. 
Jouftrett, the interpreter, ate ^Vith us, and by the 
way he smacked I know he enjoyed the sardines. 

That night Bob and I stayed together and it was 
w&y in tlie wee hours of moniiuo' before vre went to 



WAR MEMORIES 55 

sleep. I had walked many miles that day so slept 
soundly wlien I did get to sleep. About three o 'clock 
in the morning Bob awoke me and asked, ''Hear 
those airplanes dropping bombs on Abbeville ? ' ' That 
was the first war noise I had ever heard. Nearly 
every night after that I could hear the bombing 
planes dropping bombs in and around Abbeville. 

The next day our battalion arrived. Late that 
afternoon we had an officers' meeting at battalion 
headquarters. After this meeting was over, the mail 
corporal distributed our first mail from home. I can- 
not recall when I was so happy as I was when I 
received several letters addressed to me in familiar 
handwriting. There was a beautiful garden just in 
rear of ba/tta^lion headquarter, land most of the 
flowers were in full bloom. It was then late in the 
afternoon, the time of day, as I have said, when I 
thought of home most. I went into the garden and 
sat on a bench and began reading my letters. Every 
line was filled with bright, cheery words and 
thoughts, just like all the other letters that I re- 
ceived while in France. As I sat there and read those 
letters, I was happy that I was doing something in 
the great crisis, yet I felt a little lonely and longed 
for home. 

Among these letters was an invitaton to an exer- 
cise to which I had long looked forward with much 



56 WAR MEMORIES 

interest. Here is the letter I wrote to my sister in 
answer to the invitation: 

"Somewhere in France, June 6, 1918. 
Dearest Mary: 

I received my first mail today and the first letter 
I opened was the invitation to the commencement 
exercises at Lucy Cobb Institute, and sister, I just 
can't describe the feeling that came over me, because 
I have often thought of and pictured you at the 
graduating exercises and I wanted to be present. I 
would like to send you a present; but can't, so I'll 
send you all the love a brother could have for a sister, 
and all the best wishes he could wish. 

I cut the family group picture into small pieces 
and now I have you all underneath a sheet of isin- 
glass in my pocketbook which I bought the other day, 
and when I open it, I can see the dearest faces on 
earth to me. 

I don't know but I just imagine America has been 
aroused since I left and is now putting her whole 
strength and heart- into the war. I hope so, she 
ought to, she must ! I 've been in and passed through 
a number of tawns and cities both in England and 
France, and I haven't seen one single boy or man, 
that T could stare at and say to him if I came over 
to fight why aren 't you at the front ? ' ' 

OUR FIRiST FATAL CASUALTY 

(Several days later I rode a bicycle about 12 kilo- 
meters over to where Bob Gunn's battalion was lo- 
cated. I wanted to see him again because I had just 



WAR MEMORIES 57 

heard the sad news of his captain being killed while 
on an inspection tour on the British front. This was 
Captain Jewett Williams, son-in-law of the beloved 
Chancellor Barrow of the University of Georgia. He 
was killed on the night of June 9th, 1918. This was 
the first fatal casualty of the 82nd Division. Cap- 
tain Williams left the ministry to follow his flag. 
I never saw Lieutenant Gunn after this until we met 
over in the States. 

Tt was dark 'when I returned to Monsboubert and 
I was tired but T could not go to sleep for some time 
as I was thinking of Captain Williams. I had the 
room that he occupied a few days before when his 
battalion was in Monsboubert and I was sleeping on 
the same bed on which only a few nights before he 
had slept. 

TRAINING 

The drilling ground was about two kilometers from 
the town. Nearly every day we would go out, carry- 
ing our rolling kitchens with us and eating dinner 
on the drill field and would not return until late in 
the afternoon. We did not drill for hours the old 
''squads rights" and ''squads left" but mixed in 
games with our training. This made our drilling 
more interesting and the days did not drag by as 
did the old drilling days back at Camp Gordon. 



58 WAR MEMORIES 



A platoon of British soldiers was sent througTi 
our division giving exhibition drills. One day while 
we were spending the day on our drill field we assem- 
bled and witnessed an exhibition of drilling and 
games of these picked British soldiers. The flash and 
pep they put into their drilling and games were re- 
freshing. 

Thereafter we began to mix in games with our 
drill schedules. The gas mask would not have been 
worth the trouble of forever carrying it if we could 
not put it on in six seconds and the many games we 
played with the gas masks trained us to put them on 
quickly., One could easily inhale enough gas tio 
prove fatal if he was not able to put his ma^k on in 
a hurry. You may think it an easy thing to put on 
a gas mask in six seconds; it usually takes the be- 
ginner several minutes. 

Just suppose you were at the front. Everything 
is still and quiet. Gas shells begin to burst around 
you. What would be the first thing to do? Hold 
your breath, of course. How long can you hold your 
breath? Take out your watch and try it. Now do 
not take a deep breath before you begin counting the 
seconds, because you could not do that when the gas 
shells began bursting. Well, suppose you could hold 
your breath only forty-five seconds and suppose it 
would take you sixty seconds to put on your mask. 



WAR MEMORIES 59 

What would be the result? Death! if the gas being 
used against you was a deadly gas. 

Just on the edge of our drill field we saw the 
first airplane bomb holes. There were three large 
holes made in the ground. They were about fifty 
yards apart and in a straight line. Later, of course, 
these holes became common sights, but this was our 
first look at any of the war signs of destruction. We 
were puzzled quite a bit about these holes. We would 
not have been if they had been in the little village. 
We knew that often the airman missed his mark, but 
these holes were not even close to a village as they 
were several kilometers from Monsboubert, the near- 
est town. 

T recall one very hot day before we left this area 
when we were spending the entire day on the drill 
field. I marched my platoon over to the edge of the 
drill field and had them to stack arms and told them 
to "fall out" for ten minutes' rest. We stretched 
out underneath the shade of a nearby tree, and as 
usual relaxed and half way dozed as you probably 
have done when stretched out on the ground in the 
shade on a hot day. 

"I have it!" exclaimed one of the members of my 
platoon. This broke the silence of our resting period. 
''You have what?" said his chum. 



60 WAR MEMORIES 

''I have solved the mystery of the three airplane 
bomb holes." 

"Be quiet and let somebody rest sometimes," said 
another. 

''Go on and tell it," chimed in several. 

I looked at my watch and it was time to "fall 
in" but I wanted to hear how he solved the mystery 
of the three holes so I waited until he finished. 

"Well," he said, "I figure it is just like this. A 
German started over to drop a few bombs on Lon- 
don. When he got this far he met one of those daring 
British boys who don't take off their hats to anyone 
in the air. When he saw this British plane he started 
back home but he was afraid the British plane would 
catch him so he pulled his lever droppiiig the three 
bombs to lighten his load so he could fly faster." 

This theory soon spread through the battalion and 
it was accepted as being the real reason why the 
bomb holes were so far from town. There's nothing 
that the American soldier cannot figure out. 

Many planes flew high over us and at first we gazed 
at them but later we learned not to look up when they 
were directly overhead because often German planes 
would come over and photograph our area. The sun 
shining into a lot of upturned faces showed up well 
in aero photographs. 

Here we had our first casualtv. While on this drill 



WAR MEMORIES 61 



field a piece of shrapnel from an anti-aircraft gun 
hit one of Company F s men on the foot. 

A LITTLE MUSIC 

In the professor's home next to the village school, 
Captain Tillman had a room in which there was a 
piano. Lieutenan)t Johnny BrowTi, from Sylaeauga, 
Alabama, was an old star on the University of Ala- 
bama glee club and he could play the rags that made 
us forget about the war. Nearly every night w^e had 
a singing feast in Captain Tillman's room. I re- 
member particularly one night the professor's family 
opened their room door across the hall to hear the 
singing and when Lieutenant Brown started playing 
the "Marseillaise," I wish you could have seen the 
professor's family. They went wild with excitement 
and joy. 

One of the most pleasant recollections I have of 
my stay here is the strawberries in the garden 
where I was billeted. The lady of the house told me 
to help myself and I did. About three doors from me 
an old lady kept several cows. Nearly every day I 
enjoyed big, red, juicy strawberries with thick cream. 
As I said before, we moved from town, to town. 
Our General wanted us to get used to moving around 
and we got plenty of it. We were billeted in many 
villages. 



62 WAR MEMORIES 

I hold in my memory the picture of every little 
town we were in, and there are numerous little things 
that I recall that happened in every one of them 
in which we were hilleted that I could write about 
as I have written about Monsboubert. I will say, 
however, that in every town we found these good old 
French women and it would take a large book to tell 
of their kindness and politeness to us. 

A PLEASANT MOVE 

After our short stay back of the British front in 
northern France, our division w^as ordered to the 
Toul sector, and on June 16, 1918, our regiment en- 
trained. Jusit a month before this we had crossed 
from Liverpool to Southampton and from the train 
we saw picturesque old England and now we jour- 
neyed for two days through many miles of beautiful 
France. 

We were all happy because we were going into the 
American zone and that meant we would no longer be 
on British rations. They fed us too much jam. Some 
of the American divisions that were sent back of the 
British front remained and fought with the British 
throughout the war. 



WAR MEMORIES 63 

THE DOUGHBOY 

This was our first experience in riding in little 
French box cars. Every car had marked on the 
sides, ''40 Hommes, 8 Chevaux," which meant in 
real language, "forty men or eight horses." I hope 
the eight horses were not as crowded as the forty men 
that squeezed in the little cars. 

Think of forty men when night came unrolling 
their heavy packs to get out their blankets. Imagine 
the confusion and mix up as tooth brushes, soap, 
knives, spoons and forks scattered through the straw 
in the box car as forty packs were unrolled. Oh! 
the life of a doughboy. I know. I was a Second 
Lieutenant from the First Officers' Training Camp 
until I received my discharge. I lived close to the 
private. You have often pictured him lying bleed- 
ing in a shell hole crying for water or hanging stiff 
on barbed wire entanglements in the gray hours of 
early dawn. But there are many pictures of a dough- 
boy 's life that have never been told. 

Lieutenant Kirby and I tried to sleep on the 
floor in our small compartment car while Captain 
Tillman and Lieutenant Brown's feet dangled in our 
faces as they tried to sleep on the little seat above us. 



64 WAR MEMORIES 

FRENCH COFFEE 

Sometime during your life you have pro'bably had 
a friend try to do you a favor when at the time you 
wished he had not attempted it. That was our ex- 
perience that night. About one o'clock the train 
stopped in a little city. Those of us who were not 
asleep had at least gotten quiet. The rolling and 
bumping of the train had made us a wedge-like mass. 
All at once I heard French voices open up outside 
like a barrage starting a drive. I never heard such 
jabbering in all my life, I did not know whether the 
war w^as over or whether the Germans had broken 
through and they wanted us to get out and fight. 

I thought of old Jouffrett, our faithful interpreter. 
I immediately went to the car next to ours and asked 
him what was the matter. He poked his head out of 
the window and in a nonchalant manner said: "Mr. 
Holden, zey say zey heard ze troop train was coming 
through and zey have prepared hot coffee for all. ' ^ 

Then the officer in charge of the train passed by 
and told me to wake up the men and tell them they 
could get hot coffee if they wanted any ; that the 
train w^ould stop there for twenty minutes. 

On the platform were large containers of hot and 
bitter coffee. I told the men about it but very few 
availed themselves of the opportunity. The French- 



WAR MEMORIES 65 

men kept insisting that we drink the coffee after 
they had gone to the trouble to prepare it. But our 
boys did not want to get out of their places at that 
time of the night. They knew it would have been 
like unpacking and repacking a box of sardines. 
Then too, they had tasted French coffee before. Ham 
and eggs might have gotten them up, but not French 
coffee. 

When the train started the Frenchmen were puz- 
zled and they jabbered something— I don't know^ 
what. But w^e puzzled them more times than once 
while w^e were over there. Speaking a different lan- 
guage and being of different natures, I think we got 
along fine with our French comrades. 

OUR NEW AREA 

About daybreak the next morning (June 18) our 
battalion arrived at Foug. We had slept very little 
so it was a relief to get out in the fresh air and wialk 
around. We marched into a nearby field and there 
our mess sergeant prepared breakfast. 

Major Buxton sent for me as he never failed to do 
w^hen w^e reached a "new town," unless he knew that 
Lieutenant Woods (the Battalion Adjutant) would 
see me. Major Buxton saw me this time and he 
pulled out his map from his small leather case and 



66 WAR MEMORIES 

showed me the little town of Lueey. He told me that 
oiir battalion v/as to occupy this village. A sergeant 
from each of the four companies reported to me and 
we hurried through breakfast and w^ere off for Lucey. 

There were always plenty of maps at our disposal 
while in France and I had a very good map of our 
new surroundings. I knew the battalion would begin 
marching as soon as they completed their usual 
"policing up the grounds" where they ate breakfast. 
Major Buxton showed me the road over which the 
battalion would march. It was about eight miles. 
I saw a much shorter road to Lucey but Major Bux- 
ton said it was too hilly for the battalion to take the 
short cut with their heavy packs. "We put our packs 
on the kitchen wagon and started over the short cut 
hilly road. We arrived at Lucey about an hour and 
a half before the battalion and had everything in 
readiness upon their arrival. 

Lucey was a little town and like most of the French 
villages was built in a valley. Steep hills on all sides 
of the village were covered with the principal French 
product, grapes. There were a few natives still liv- 
ing in the village and they kept the vineyards well 
worked. 

During our week's stay at Lucey, we were put 
through stiff training. Toul was about twelve miles 
away and occasionally w^e w^ould visit this walled in 



WAR MEMORIES 67 



city, where we would often meet with our friends 
from the other outfits of the division which were sta- 
tioned nearby. 

TO THE FRONT 

On the afternoon of June 25, I was ordered to pro- 
ceed to Boucanville where our battalion headquarters 
would be located on the front line. I was to go 
ahead of the battalion and get familiar with the am- 
munition dumps, pyrotechnics, and various other lo- 
mtions. There are, as you doubtless know, three bat- 
talions to a regiment. Our battalion (2nd) was to 
occupy the front line. The first battalion was to be 
in support in the woods a few miles in the rear. The 
third battalion was to be stationed in reserve in a lit- 
tle village, about five miles back of the front named 
Cornieville. 

Just before I left I wrote the following hurried 
note: 

''France, June 25, 1918. 
Dear Papa: 

Am in terribly big hurry. Am in good spirits and 
good health. With all my love to you. Mama, How- 
ard and the girls and all the others I love so dearly 
and God grant that I'll do what I can and return to 
vou all. 

FRANK A. HOLDEN." 



68 WAR MEMORIES 

This little hurriedly written note means little if 
anything to the ^general reader, but it shows that we 
always wrote home if possible, just before going into 
any dangerous places, and this was my last oppor- 
tunity to write home before going to the front for 
my first time, so you see if I had joined the long roll 
of the boys who did not come back, then this little 
note would have been a precious little note to the 
folks at home. 

I left with Lieutenant Little of Forsyth, Ga., about 
three o'clock that afternoon in a truck for Cornie- 
ville. We lit a fat cigar as we left Lueey and en- 
joyed our ride very much. 

We reached Cornieville a little before dark. The 
Supply Company of the 103rd Infantry (26th Di- 
vision) was stationed there and every night they car- 
ried rations to the front line and support battalions. 
They never left until after dark as most of the road 
was under observation. About 8 :30, I got on one of 
the ration wagons and started to the front. The horse 
walked all the way and I learned quite a bit about our 
sector from the driver as we journeyed along. 

The night was a cool clear moonlit night. As we 
got nearer the front, I could see flares shooting up 
over in the German lines. 

"What is that?" I asked as three white stars 



WAR MEMORIES 69 

pierced upward thrrough the darkness a few miles 
ahead of us. 

The driver replied: "Some say it is a guide to 
German bombing planes and others say they keep 
very few men in their front lines in this sector and 
that it is to make the Americians think they have 
more men in their front line than they really have 
and others say they use the flares to keep us guessing 
what it does mean." 

We reached Boucanville about midnight. The 
driver told me th«jt the ration wagons did not go 
any further than Boucanville because a wagon was 
going into Xivray one night and the Germans slip- 
ped through our lines and captured the driver. 

When we arrived 'at Boucanville I reported to the 
Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, 103rd In- 
fantry. An orderly found me a place to sleep in the 
infirmary. The next morning I walked through the 
town which was well camouflaged and I found out 
all I could about the various locations and about dark 
I went to meet our biattalion which was in the woods 
a few miles back. After telling Lieutenant Woods 
and Major Butxon all I had learned about our sec- 
tor I then joined my platoon. 

The members of m}^ platoon always felt free to 
come to me with anything that concerned the welfare 
of the platoon. Just a little while before we started 



70 WAR MEMORIES 

our march into the trenches several of my men asked 
me not to carry one member of our platoon into the 
trenches with us. They wsaid that nearly every man 
in the platoon would feel better if he w^ere left be- 
hind. He was an Austrian and his grandfather was 
a prominent man at one tim^ in the Austrian gov- 
ernment. I saw Major Buxton and told him that 
although this boy was one of the best soldiers in my 
platoon, my men would feel better if he did not go 
into the trenches with us. We discussed the matter 
some little time and finally Major Buxton decided it 
would be best to transfer him to the supply company. 

I went back to the little shacks in the woods and 
called the boy to one side and told him he had been 
transferred to the supply company. He answered 
that he was loyal in every way and wanted to do his 
best, but said that as he would be transferred he 
would tell me something that he had not previously 
mentioned which was if he should ever be captured 
the Germans would learn of his Austrian parentage 
and would kill him. He reported to the supply com- 
pany that night back in Cornieville and stayed with 
it through the fighting, making one of the best sol- 
diers in the company. He w^as put in charge of 
counting and checking and issuing clothing and for 
his efficient work was promoted to sergeant. 

Now this boy made a good soldier. Immigration 



WAR MEMORIES 71 

is all right if properly limited, but if indiscriminate 
immigration is not stopped this country in fifty years 
from now may have great difficulty in fighting any 
country on account of the propaganda and influence 
of the foreign element here in sympathy with the 
enemy. Propaganda is a new science or rather an 
old science more extensively used during the World 
War by Germany in this country. 

Four guides were sent back to us for our company 
from the company we were to relieve, one for each 
platoon to show us the way through the trenches, I 
remember the name of the guide for my platoon, Eay 
C. Miller of Waterloo, Iowa. Our orders were to 
march in single file, about three paces between each 
man as the roads were likely to be shelled that night. 
A big shell hitting into a platoon m.arching in close 
formation w^ould be like shooting into a covey of 
partridges hovering close together on the ground. 

Miller and I walked together at the head of the 
column. Occasionally we w^ould pass a platoon on 
the road which had just been relieved. We were 
then far enough back of the front line trenches for 
the men to sing and not be heard by the Germans. 
They were happy to be relieved. Eighty-six days at 
the front, even though considered a ''quiet sector" 
had been a terrible strain on them. Most, if not all, 
thought they were going to get their much needed 



WAR MEMORIES 



rest and so they were singing the good old familiar 
songs, ''Where do we go from here boys?" and 
''There's a long, long trail a- winding," etc. The 
Germans at this time were concentrating their forces 
and were preparing to make a most desperate effort 
to break through our lines at Chateau Thierry. ' ' On 
to Paris!" was their cry and the "long, long trail" 
was winding towards the w'heat fields near Chateau 
Thierry for the 26th Division boys, and the rest that 
some thought they were going to get was a real rest 
— a long rest where there are no wars and suffering. 
I so often think of that night when the singing col- 
umns sw^ung by us as we silently marched on to the 
trenches. 

Miller led us through and beyond Boucanville a 
few hundred yards and then into a trench that began 
by the side of the road. We had read of trenches 
and we had dug trenches back in the States, but now 
we were in real trenches for the first time. We were 
marching in single file and followed just behind the 
guide. Occasionally a guard holding his gun in 
front of him would say, "Halt! who is there?" The 
quickness with wliich my guide would halt was very 
noticeable, but the next few days I understood. Our 
guards were nervous and high pitched when they 
first went into the trenches and there were several 
fatal accidents caused from guards shooting our own 



WAR MEMORIES 73 



men because the password was not forthcoming im- 
mediately after challenging. Then too, the pass- 
words were French words which w^ere difficult for us 
to pronounce. Miller would give the pa.ssword and 
we would move on. Three platoons from our com- 
pany stopped in Xivray. 

A few days before this there was fierce fighting 
in this village. Six hundred Germans came over to 
take the little town but a company from the 103rd 
Infantry said, ''No." More than sixty Germans 
were killed and the number of enemy dead near and 
back of the German trenches was never ascertained. 
When you get a chance read an account of this scrap 
or ask some member of the 26th Division about it. 
Two names— Xivray and Seichprey will live forever 
in the memory of the boys of the Yankee Division. 

My platoon marched through Xivray past the few 
ghost-like walls that were still standing, and into the 
trenches to the right of the village. We relieved the 
2nd Platoon, Co. A, 108rd Infantry. The Lieuten- 
ant in charge of the platoon that we were to relieve 
was at the beginning of the trench sector his platoon 
occupied. The Lieutenant and I Avalked through the 
trenches until we came to his last post. 

''What is beyond this post?" I asked. 

''A French company occupies the trenches beyond 



74 WAR MEMORIES 

but it is fifty yards or more to the nearest French- 
man. ' ' 

''What's to keep the Germans from slipping in be- 
tween our last post and the French and cutting us 
off from each other?" I said. 

"Nothing to keep them from doing that," he said. 
''If I were you I would go over tomorrow and see 
the French Captain who has his dugout about a 
hundred yards down the trench and devise some plan 
whereby your men and his will meet, ' ' 'he added. 

The Lieutenant w^as in a hurry to get away with 
his platoon before any shelling started on the roads. 

When he left me he said : "Keep your men out of 
sight in day time. The Germans do not know that 
these trenches are here, but if the German observers 
should get a glimpse of one of your men they would 
then shell you." 

My headquarters w-ere in the middle of the trench 
sector we were holding. It was a hole dug out in the 
back of the trench about ten feet square. In one 
corner was a little box on which were a few^ pieces of 
writing paper and a candle. Two blankets hung over 
the doorway a few feet apart so when going in and 
out one blanket would be raised at a time so as not 
to let any light shine out. I kept two runners at my 
post with me all the time. There were little holes 
dug in the side of the trench where the men w^ould 



WAR MEMORIES 75 

cuddle up and sleep in the day time, and where a 
few would sleep at night ^vho did guard duty during 
the day. 

Al3out 2 :00 'clock I heard a rifle go off in my 
trench. I immediately ran up the trench and found 
the hoy who shot looking over the top of the trench. 
I asked him what he shot at and he said he thought 
he saw something in the barhed wire in front, but 
said it might have been his imagination. I think it 
was. 

We slept most of the time the next day. In the 
afternoon a few shells whistled overhead but they 
were falling way back of onr lines. Later in the 
afternoon the compiany's mess 'isergea.nt 's kitchen 
kept by Sergeant John Paul Jones of Talbotton, Ga., 
was showing too much smoke over in Xivray and the 
Germans started shelling tlie town. I lay out in the 
sunshine just out of our trenches behind a lot of 
camouflage and watched the shelling. It lasted ten 
to fifteen minutes, I thought our company, except 
my platoon, had been wiped out until a runner came 
over to deliver a message. I asked if anybody wa.s 
left in Xivray and he said that no one was scratched. 
It wa,s remarkable sometimes how many shells could 
drop among us and no one get hurt. 

I did not stay with my platoon all the time. 
Major Buxton had to have another officer and I left 



76 WAR MEMORIES 

my platoon with Sergeant Hillis, of Statesboro, Ga. 
I was permanent officer of the day of our front line 
sector. We had guards on in Boucanviile all the 
time and no one ever passed through the town without 
giving the password. We received a new password 
every day. 

A few nights after that Lieutenant Joe Wood sent 
for me about 1 :00 o 'clock in the morning. I think 
Major Buxton was out making his rounds in the front 
line trenches. Wood w-as very tired and he asked me 
to ''hold the bag" awhile. He dozed off to sleep in 
a chair and I sat by the phone. It was one of those 
still nights. 

The most lasting and impressive of all my experi- 
ences in this quiet sector was the intense stillness of 
some of the niglits. There was something weird about 
the long, still niglits that made us speak in whispers. 
So often I would hear our men say, ''Everything is 
mighty quiet tonight; they must be preparing for 
something big." A runner said to me once: "Major 
Buxton said be on the lookout for something to hap- 
pen tonight. He said that everything seems so quiet 
that it makes him expect something is going to hap- 
pen." Almost every night we could hear shelling 
somewhere on the front but occa.sionally the whole 
night would pass without a sound. 



WAR MEMORIES 77 



MEMORIES OF FRONT LINE SECTOR 

There are many things I remember about our stay- 
on this front. Strange as it may seem to you, some 
of our men preferred to be in the very front line 
trenches in this quiet sector rather than in support 
and reserve positions because there Avere no working 
details taken from the trenches and there was noth- 
ing much to do except lie around, w^rite letters home, 
sleep, eat and talk in the day time and "stand to" 
in the early hours of the morning. 

iSometimes only a few men would be awake in the 
front line trenches out of each platoon but these men 
who staid awake kept an ever watchful eye over the 
parapets into No Man's Land. Wlien their time 
was out they would wake up other men to keep 
w^atch. But just before daybreak every man was 
awake and at his post. This is called "stand to." 
It w^as ust at dawn that most of the trench raids v/ere 
made by the enemy. 

The men in the rear always had plenty to do. 
The battalion in reserve would do a little drilling, 
practice throwing hand grenades and there was no 
end of "policing up" the company streets and the 
other parts of the little towns which looked as if they 
had never had a sweeping. Reserve battalions were 



78 WAR MEMORIES 

usually billeted in villages several miles back of the 
front. 

The battalion in support also had some policing to 
do, but their hardest work would usually be going 
to the front line after dark, digging new trenches, 
making new barbed wire entanglements, quitting just 
in time to get back to their billets before day. So 
you can see why the front line trenches in this par- 
ticular sector were the preference of the men. 

Nearly every day I would watch for hours and 
houi-s our anti-aircraft guns shoot at the enemy air- 
planes. I never saw a plane brought down by this 
method on this front but as the white balls of smoke 
would bursit around the planes, they made beautiful 
and interesting sights. 

In every village on the front that had been 
heavily shelled (except those completely demolished) 
the village church steeple still towered as high in the 
air as ever. The church in Boucanville had several 
hits registered on it by the artiller>^ but the steeple 
remained untouched. 

I have often wondered why so many of these 
church steeples were left standing in the front line 
towns. Some said it was because they w^ere difficult 
to hit, but T do not think that is true. The Germans 
were very good at hitting most anything they wanted 
to and the steeples furnished a visible and immov- 



WAR MEMORIES 79 

able target. Some said it was because they used our 
steeples as a range and guide for their artiUerj^ 
Others said they used the steeples on their side of 
the lines for observation posts as we did those on our 
side and if they knocked ours down we would retal- 
iate and that a kind of gentlemen's agreement about 
the matter existed. 

One afternoon I climbed the winding steps of the 
steeple to the church in Boucanville. There were two 
signal corps men in the tip-top and they were look- 
ing out over the enemy territory and making notes 
of any movements of troops and signs of smoke and 
any other signs of the enemy they could detect. 

I looked through field glasses over miles and 
miles of the enemy trench systems and into many lit- 
tle villages. Their camouflage was almost perfect. 
I wondered as I looked how many Germans were 
concealed in the area that I saw. I did not see a 
movement of any kind. It had the appearance of a 
place absolutely deserted. 

The Germans across from us seemed to know as 
much about our locations as we did ourselves. I 
often think of how we used to sit in battalion head- 
quarters and talk about how we believed the Ger- 
mans could probably almost any time drop a 210 
(that was the number of their largest shell) on us 
and bury us so deep in the ruins that it would take 



80 WAR MEMORIES 

days to dig us out. It is a fact that during their 
shelling the morning they made their attack on the 
men of the 103rd Infantry in Xivray three big 
210 's fell in a direct line, two of which fell just 
back of and one in front of battalion headquarters. 
This was a good indication that they knew where bat- 
talion headquarters were located and missed their 
calculations just a fraction. I saw the three big 
holes and they w^re large and deep enough to bury 
two large automobiles in each of them. 

Now you are probably wondering why we did not 
move battalion headquarters. I'll tell you why. 
Simply because we thought if we did then the Ger- 
mans would drop a 210 on us just to show us that 
they knew^ that we had moved. 

'Their spy system was remarkable. It seemed that 
they frequently knew the nights that our reliefs 
were to be made. I heard that before we relieved 
the 26th Division an old woman, pro-German, who 
lived in Raulecourt, where our regimental head- 
quarters were located, would signal to the Germans 
the night we would make reliefs so they could shell 
the roads. Some of the men saw^ a light in her room 
on the second story of her home one night and her 
signaling days were over. They said she would light 
a candle in her room and pull down her curtain and 
give signals by walking between the candle and th« 
■curtain. "So shines a good dteed ^n a naughty 



WAR MEMORIES 81 



world" did not apply to the rays that came from 
this old lady's candle. 

Here is something that we will never forget about 
our stay in this sector. We kept men stationed at 
various places along the front standing by a bell, 
klaxon or piece of iron rail ready to give the alarm 
should they detect any gas fumes. It was their duty 
to arouse us from our sleep by making all the noise 
they could when they would smell gas or hear other 
sentries give the alarm. "We were often awakened 
by these gas alarms and my ! what a feeling it was 
to be aroused from our sleep and hear this noise 
breaking the dead stillness of the night. They proved 
to be false alarms most of the time and an alarm 
became a regular joke, but when we heard one we 
never failed to put on our masks which we always 
had strapped around our necks or by our sides while 
we were sleeping. We knew the story of the wolves 
and the boy with his lambs and we slapped on our 
ma^ks every time the alarms sounded. 

Oftentimes we would hear the German gas alarms 
go off across from us. Some nights gas alarms would 
be sounding up and down the front for miles, one 
sentry taking it up from another and so on. I think 
that some of our sentries at times heard German gas 
alarms and thinking it was on our side of the lines, 
began turning their klaxons or beating their iron rails 



82 WAR MEMORIES 

with the strength of a blacksmith and then alarms 
on both sides tJie lines would be waking up everyone 
within hearing, all because a lone sentry somewhere 
thought he got a wduff of some deadly gas fumes 
when probably it may have been the fragrance from 
a little wild flower growing out in No Man's Land. 

I must say something about Montsec. I heard 
the French lost many men trying to hold this high 
mountain during the early days of the war. We 
were almost at the foot of this giant upheaval. For 
many miles back of our front the Germans magni- 
fied our back area with their high powered Austrian 
glasses. When any movement or any new camouflage 
or any signs of new trenches having been dug were 
detected by the observers from the top of this moun- 
tain they would signal the locations to their artil- 
lery and from their maps they would begin shelling. 
This mountain was ever our day ghost until cap- 
tured in the St. Mihiel drive. 

IN RESERVE 

After seven days in the front lines, we received our 
relief orders. I was ordered ahead of the battalion 
to Cornieville, a little town about six miles back of 
the lines. The battalion there was to move up to the 
support position and the support battalion was to 



W A R M E M R I E 8 83 

relieve us in the trenches. Of course reliefs had to 
be made at night. 

We had a little railway system just back of the 
lines and after the battalion marched as far as 
Eaulecourt, they boarded flat cars on the little nar- 
row gauge railroad. 

The battalion arrived about 3 :00 A. M. at Comie- 
ville for our first rest from the trenches. The mess 
sergeants wiio preceded the battalion with me had 
coffee prepared when our men arrived and a ser- 
geant from each company and I had made all ar- 
rangements for places for them to sleep in lofts of 
barns called billets. Most of the next day w^as spent 
in sleeping, resting and cleaning up. 

FROM TRENCHES TO PALACE CARS 

While we were here in reserve there was a deliv- 
ery of the largest batch of mail that we had received. 
The ration wagons brought us quite a bit while we 
w^ere at the front, but the Regimental Post Office was 
located in Cornieville and we received our mail there 
as soon as it came in and could be sorted out. 

While here, some of us were granted a day's pass 
to Toul and Nancy. Captain Howell Foreman nf 
Atlanta, Ga., and I rode over to a nearby town and 
caught the Paris-Nancy express to Nancy. My! it 



84 WAR MEMORIES 

was great to sit in those seats with beautiful lace 
backs in a compartment of one of their line palace 
cars and ride by perhaps the most exquisite scenery 
in all France. Most of the way the train followed 
the green valley alongside the winding Moselle river 
and on the hillsides could be seen the magnificent 
chateaux. What a change ! Two days before this in 
the front line trenches — now twisting and turning 
past scenery that tourists pay dearly to see. 

Nancy was a little Paris, a beautiful city, rather 
lively to be so near the front lines with show windows 
filled with souvenirs for the American soldiers. 
There were numerous fruit stands and vv'ine parlors. 
The first thing I noticed when we arrived in the city 
was the entrance to the large cave near the station. 
Railroad stations v.ere the main targets for airplane 
bombers and the best cave in the city was near the 
depot. 

'There were six large bath houses in Nancy and that 
afternoon I took a bath in a bath tub for the first 
time in, well, I will not say, and that night I slept 
between w^hite sheets on a soft bed. Such a treat I 
had not expected so soon. 

Captain Foreman and I had a room on the top 
floor of the American Hotel. About 2:00 o'clock in 
the morning we were awakened by the sirens. Enemy 
bombing planes were heard near the front making 



WAR MEMORIES 85 

their way towards Nancy and the news was phoned 
to the city, whereupon the sirens' vv'histles announced 
the approaching planes. AVe threw on a few clothes 
and rushed down five flightvS of stairs. The lobby was 
filled with people who had also dressed rather hur- 
riedly. They had their valuables in little handbags 
and they waited to see if the planes were going to 
bomb Nancy; if so, Wiey were going: across the street 
into a cave. The planes must have been headed to- 
wards another city that night as shortly the safety 
signal was given and Nancy went back to slumber- 
land. 

The next day while eating dinner in a restaurant 
I saw Lieutenant Alvin Neely of Waynesboro, G-a., 
who was one of the instructors in my company at the 
First Officers' Training Camp. I was very glad to 
see him. He was in the 5th Machine Gun Battalion 
of the 2nd Division, and had just endured the se- 
vere fighting at Chateau-Thierry and after he fin- 
ished telling me what he had been through, T then 
began to think that we had been having child's play. 

Before I caught the train back to Cornieville, I 
bought many souvenii's and sent them home. 

When we returned to Cornieville, others were al- 
lowed to go to Nanc3^ and Toul. We stayed in re- 
serve a week. We could do very little drilling on 
account of the airplane observers. A detail of men 



86 WAR MEMORIES 



went to the rifle rang'e every day and practiced rifle 
shooting and throwing hand grenades. 

THE INTERPRETER GETS A OALL 

While back here in reserve we often had visits 
from staff officers both from our various headquar- 
ters and the French headquarters. About the third 
day we were in Cornieville a French car rolled up 
in front of battalion headquarters and stopped and 
a French General stepped out. He was the Command- 
er of the 32nd Frencli Corps, and at this time our 
division formed a part of that coi"ps. He came by to 
talk with Major Buxton with reference to how and 
where we would assemble and what would be our 
attacking formation and tactics if the Germans 
should make an attack on our front. Major Buxton 
was well versed in French but he decided that it 
would be best to have our old friend, Jouffrett, to in- 
terpret for him. 

In a few minutes an orderly had the interpreter at 
headquarters. Mr. Jouffrett became confused and 
nervous when he saw^ the oak leaves on a cap on the 
table for he knew tliat a French General was there. 
He saluted the General and then Major Buxton told 
Mr. Jouffrett that he wanted him to do some in- 
terpreting. Jouffrett then began to twist his mus- 



WAR MEMORIES 87 



tache, first with one hand, then the other, a great 
habit of the oki interpreter. He wanted and tried 
to do his best for the French General, but he became 
so excited that in a few minutes he was talking 
French to Major iUixton and Enj^'l-:>li to the Gen- 
eral, and the General became so provoked that he 
dismissed Jouffrett and he and Major Buxton got 
along very well without an interpreter. 

About 2:00 o'clock the next morning when our 
men were peacefully sleeping in the hay lofts of the 
village barns the officer of the guard went to Major 
Buxton's room and aroused him. He told Major 
Buxton there was a French courier with him who in- 
sisted on delivering a message to the Major in per- 
son. Major Butxon read the order by candle light. 
It was written in French and signed by General 
Passage. We ^vere directed to take up an alert po- 
sition at once in the Bois de Jury — the heavy woods 
and plateau on our west. 

Major Buxton immediately told the officer of the 
guard to blow "call to arms." The Company Com- 
manders and other officers instantly rushed to bat- 
talion headquarters and there found Major Buxton, 
who pointed out the positions on the map that we 
were to take up and in ten minutes after ''call to 
arms" was blown the battalion w^as out of the vil- 
lage. 



88 WAR MEMORIES 

General Lindsey, our Brigade Commander, told 
Major Buxton that tlie Commander of the French 
Corps complimented him on the speed shown by our 
battalion and he was now^ satisfied the Americans 
were well trained and on the alert. 

BACK TO THE FRONT 

After a ten days' stay in Cornieville we moved 
up a few miles in the woods called Gerard Sas, where 
we stayed ten days in support. While here W'e slept 
and rested during the day and some nights went to 
the front to dig trenches and lay barbed wire en- 
tanglements out in No Man's Land. We were prac- 
tically hidden while in these woods from observation 
of the enemy airplanes. One afternoon while here, 
Captain Tillman and I walked down the road through 
the v/oods about two hundred yards for a little pis- 
tol practice. Reverend John W. Bradberry of Chi- 
cago, 111., our Y. M. C. A. Secretary, came by with 
his kodak and took our picture. He gave us the 
prints a few days later and I sent mine home. 

After our stay in these woods we moved up for 
our second stay in the front lines. On the way back 
into the trenches we passed a Red Cross hut in 
Raulecourt where we were served hot chocolate and 
cakes. Lieutenant Fred Barker of Bradentown, Flor- 




Captain 
J. M. Tillman 



Lieutenant 
Frank A. H olden 



WAR MEMORIES 89 

ida, was in charge of this hut and before I go 
further, I want to say something about Lieutenant 
Barker. The following is the first part of an article 
with reference to him that appeared in a Harris- 
burg (Pa.) paper, written by Melville H. James: 

''T used to know a man 
In Ebensburg 
Up in the mountains 
Above Altoona 
Who had a fine home 
A beautiful wife, 
Three dandy children, 
And a rosy future. 
The skies held no clouds 
For Fred Barker — 
That was his name. 
He summered in Ebensburg, 
And in the winter 
He went to Florida. 
He was a dandy fellow. 
When the war came 
He used to read the papers 
And clench his fists 
At the stories of 
Hun atrocities 
And he wanted to enlist 
And go over and fight 
But luck wasn't wdth him 
And still he read the papers 
And clenched his fists 
And swore softlv. 



WAR MEMORIES 



He dreamed dreams 

And he had visions 

Of himself 

Helping out — some way 

Any way. 

Finally he got a chance 

And he went to France." 

Yes, he went to France, and the good work he did 
would fill volumes. Lieutenant Barker served us on 
relief nights (and any other time, too) as we marched 
past his hut out of the trenches, tired, dirty and 
sleepy, on our way hack to our much needed rest. 
He served us hot coffee and chocolate as we passed by 
on our way into the trenches, warming and strength- 
ening us as we would begin our stay at the front. 
We all loved him, and he thought so much of us. He 
said he wanted to follow the 328th Infantry when we 
went into the drive. He did follow us, he followed 
us into the dangerous places — places that he did not 
have to be in and he followed us until the 14th of 
October when a shell came over and killed him and 
our Chaplain, Lieutenant Daniel S. Smart, whom you 
will read about later. 

We went back into the trenches feeling like vet- 
erans. Nothing unusual happened during our second 
stay at the front. We saw the same sights that we 
witnessed when there before ; we had the same noisv 



WAR MEMORIES 91 



nights and occasionally a night of stillness. Some of 
our men got mighty restles.^ and began to wonder 
wh}^ we did not go ahead and fight. Our patrols 
were complete masters of No Man's Land. Major 
Buxton got restless, too, and wanted to secure a 
prisoner. The 82nd Division had been holding a 
front line sector for over a month ;ind had not taken 
a prisoner. We had raided German trenches, killing 
a good many of the enemy and our patrols had on 
several occasions wounded or killed Germans. 

General headquarters back at Chaumont began to 
wonder why the 82nd Division had not secured a 
prisoner. Our daily reports were being sent in, but 
there was nothing much to report. Memorandums 
from division head([uarters were continually remind- 
ing us that the division had not taken a prisoner, so 
the Battalion Commanders of our Brigade (164th) 
were directed to satisfy themselves personally that 
everything possible was being done to secure a 
prisoner. 

In compliance with this direction Major Buxton 
with Lieutenant Kirby Stewart of Bradentown, 
Florida, and Lieutenant William 0. Winston and 
fifty men from the various platoons started out one 
night to get a German. I was not 0}\ this patrol but 
I saw them when they returned the next morning 
and heard what thev had to sav about Lieutenant 



92 W A R M E M R I E S 



Kirby Stewart's act of great unselfisliness and cool 
judgment. Here is the story: 

'Their object was a surprise attack. Just as they 
crept close to the enemy wire, a small German trench 
mortar (minenwerfer) exploded a bomb just over 
their heads and three or foul' machine guns swept 
the grass of the slope — a flare shot up with its pen- 
etrating light and numerous rifles and an occasional 
rifle grenade joined in the uproar. Our men lay 
flat and awaited orders. Major Buxton and both the 
Lieutenants lying near each other, hastily agreed that 
no "surprise" was any longer possible and only ar- 
tillery could remove the successive barriers of wire. 
The men were told to crawl out on their stomachs be- 
tween flares. The entire party got out in good order. 
One mail lost the tip of his ear, another was scratched 
across the eyelid and several had bullet holes in their 
clothes. Our men could not get to these machine 
guns from which bullets Avere cutting the weeds just 
about their heads because the barbed Avire strands 
w^ere as thick as your fingers. Artillery was the 
only thing that could have cut through this mass of 
barbed wire. Major Buxton had asked for artillery 
support to make the raid and insure a prisoner, but 
it was refused because the French did not want to 
expend the ammunition. 

The Germans were not sure of our location and 



WAR MEMORIES 93 



were firing a few inches too high. Then Lieutenant 
Stewart Avent over to the right about fifty yards 
and emptied his pistol in order to draw the enemy 
fire towards his flashes and give his men a chance to 
creep away. 

When Lieutenant Stewart joined his platoon again 
he had two bullet holes in his overseas cap, one where 
the bullet entered and the other where it went out. 
His head was not scratched, but later on when he 
came to the Argonne fight the Germans shot truer at 
this brave Lieutenant and on October the 8th, a bul- 
let this time hit just a little below his overseas cap 
and he passed away not knowing what hit him. 

There were many back in our home towns thinking 
about us, more than some of us realized. "While here 
on the front line I received a bundle of home town 
papers from Colonel H. C. Tuck. I never see Colonel 
Tuck now that I do not think of the happy moments 
he gave me by wrapping some back numbers of the 
Athens Banner and Herald and mailing them to me, 
and I read these papers within a few hundred yards 
of the Germans. After reading them I destroyed the 
papers as it was dangerous to have newspapers too 
near the Germans for they made good use of any in- 
formation they obtained. The home folks often sent 
me Georgia papers. 



94 WAR MEMORIES 

BURYING- OUR COMRADES 

After oar week was out in the front line we moved 
back for our second stay in Cornieville. On the 
morning of July 17th, the Commander of a nearby 
field hospital sent word to Major Buxton requesting 
a burial squad for two boys who had just died from 
wounds received while in the front line. They were 
from the 3rd Battalion. I was sent over that after- 
noon in charge of a squad and a bugler to pay our 
last tribute to the boys who had just passed away. 

We secured a truck from the supply company and 
drove about five miles to the hospital. "When I re- 
ported to the Commanding Officer he showed me the 
little cemetery and gave us some tools and told us to 
pidk out a place and dig the graves. We went a lit- 
tle way back of the hospital on the hillside and at 
the end of the row of little mounds that covered 
American heroes we dug two graves with picks and 
shovels. Then we went back and got the boxes that 
held the remains of our departed comrades and car- 
ried them over and tenderly lowered them into their 
graves, and after covering them with the soil of suf- 
fering France the firing squad fired a last salute. 
We then made the mounds and stood at attention 
while the bugler gently sounded taps. My thoughts 
went back across the sea to where the ''home fires 
were burning." 



WAR MEMORIES 95 



We did not personally know the boys we had laid 
to rest but they were from our regiment and were 
just boys like we were, coming from American homes. 
One was a corporal and the other a private. What 
a memory picture I have of it now! I can see my 
little burial squad as we stood by the graves, having 
performed our last duty to them as best we could 
and I feel as if I can almost hear the bugler's notes 
as they cut the air that afternoon, through woods 
and over rolling, uncultivated fields of France and 
died away in the distance. 

I wrote down in a notebook the names of the cor- 
poral and the private ^vliom we buried, but I am 
unable to find this little book now. I have hopes of 
finding it some day and when I do I want to let the 
parents of the two boys we buried know of the little 
burial ceremony that afternoon. 

As we started back to our truck we noticed on a 
far away hill quite a few people had gathered. This 
puzzled us. It was not on our way back to Cornie- 
ville, but it was a couple of hours before sundown, 
so I decided to go over and see what the excitement 
could be. When we got there we saw a German plane 
crushed to pieces and a G-erman Lieutenant and 
private lying in the ruins. Some one had covered 
their bodies with a piece of cloth. A French officer 
showed us the dead forms and they were terribly 



96 WAR MEMORIES 

mangled. I broke off a few pieces of the plane for 
souvenirs and sent them back in a letter home and to 
several of my friends, and there is pinned on the let- 
ter I now have before me as I write this experience 
a small piece of light blue canvas that I got that day 
from the wrecked plane and enclosed in the letter I 
wrote home that night telling of my experience dur- 
ing the day. 

A week in reserve, then back into support again, 
but this time in the little village of Raulecourt. A 
week here and then our entire division was relieved 
by the 89th Division. The Germans learned of this 
relief in some way and sent over thousands of gas 
shells in a little patch of woods where some of the 
89th Division men were concentrated. There were a 
few casualties in our division but the reception that 
the 89th Division received on their first night at the 
front was pitiful. There were over six hundred gas 
casualties — they were hauled in by the truck loads. 

The 82nd Division was ordered more than forty 
miles back of the lines, our regiment going to the 
little village of Rigna La Salle. 

MY GREATEST THRILL 

We had been at the front more than a month and 
a half and this was our first real rest. It was great 
to be back of the lines. This was the first time our 



WAR MEMORIES 97 

regiment had gotten together in the same village 
since 'Ae lei't Le Havre to go back of the British 
front. We could hear the big guns in the distance 
but that was all, we w^ere too far away for them to 
worry us. 

There are many thrills that I shall never forget 
— thrills that have thrilled me through and through 
and they now linger with me in pleasant memory ; but 
the greatest thrill that I have ever experienced was in 
this little village of Rigna La Salle, just back of the 
frontiers of freedom in France, late in the afternoon 
on August 13, 1918 while at retreat, when I heard for 
the first time on foreign soil the strains of the Star- 
Spangled Banner. I can appreciate the remarks of 
iSenator Hoar with reference to his feelings when 
viewing the flag on an American battleship in a 
foreign port. 

TO ANOTHER FRONT 

Just after retreat that afternoon I was handed an 
order to precede the battalion to our new sector in 
the front lines. The following is part of a letter I 
Avrote home just before going to the front again : 

''France, August 13, 1918. 
Dearest Mother: 

I have just received an order to precede the bat- 
talion again to a front line sector and am now ready 



98 WAR MEMORIES 

to go. Our battalion will occupy the front line first, 
the other two hattalons going into support and re- 
serv^e. 

I am now in front of the town hall of the little 
village. The regimental band is playing. They have 
just played the Marseillaise and the French went 
wild. But my, what a feeling I had when they 
played the Star-:Spangled Banner this afternoon at 
retreat; it's more thrilling than ever when you hear 
it over here. 

It is getting dark so must stop. I will be in the 
front lines again by midnight. A heart full of love. 

FRANK." 

And so at midnight I was back at the front in the 
city of Pont-a-Mouss'on, where our regiment was to 
relieve the 6th Marines. When I reported to battalion 
headquarters, I was very much surprised to find it 
located in a magnificent three-story chateau. I 
could hardly believe that this large fashionable home 
could be headquarters of the battalion holding a front 
line sector. 

The battalion that we were to relieve covered them- 
selves with glory at the memorable fighting near 
Chateau-Thierry and had just been sent to this sec- 
tor a few days before. Our division was ordered to 
Chateau-Thierry and would probably have been in 
the thickest of the fierce fighting there but for some 
reason our orders were canceled. 



WAR MEMORIES 



^'SOLDIERS THREE" 

The next day 1 went to the infirmary near the 
front lines to get the necessary information about 
the billets, locations, etc., to give our battalion doctors 
when they arrived. The infirmary was in a large two- 
stor.y electric-lighted chateau. While down there I 
met James Weddington, Jr., from Dublin, Georgia, 
who was attached to the Medical Corps. After talk- 
ing to him for several minutes I noticed my college 
fraternity (Phi Delta Theta) ring on his finger. 
Right away I thought about Marcus Beck who had 
been pledged to our fraternity and who was killed 
at Belleau Woods while serving with the Marines, 
the outfit that we were relieving. My father had 
written me to find out all I could about his death 
and write to his father. Judge Marcus Beck of 
Atlanta, Georgia. W^eddington introduced me to a 
boy who was with Marcus during the fighting and I 
learned that Marcus had been fighting over a week 
and that a little while before he was killed he was 
standing near his machine gun happy and smiling. 

Marcus was below the draft age. A few pages back 
you read of Lieutenant Barker, above the draft age, 
being killed in action and now you read of one who 
was below the age limit. Can you find a more beau- 
tiful example of American patriotism than this? The 



100 WAR MEMORIES 

gray-haired Red Cross man and the youthful marine 
facing the steel of the enemy side by side with their 
fellow Americans who answered their country's call ! 
There are many others, God bless them, w^ho boiled 
over with patriotism for their country and went, 
although not called, and quite a few are now listed 
"killed in action" as the two brave Americans above 
mentioned are listed in the official war records of our 
country. And thousands of others would have been 
with us had not family responsibilities and other 
good reasons prevented. 

There 's another friend of mine, ' ' killed in action, ' ' 
that I am thinking of as I write these lines. During 
the years from 1907 to 1911 inclusive, Judge Marcus 
Beck, Judge Beverly D. Evans and my father worked 
together as Justices of the Supreme Court of Geor- 
gia and were close neighbors in Atlanta and they 
never then thought their boys who were playing to- 
gether would in 1918 be fighting in Europe in a 
World War. Judge Beverly D. Evans' son, Beverly, 
like Judge Marcus Beck's son, Marcus, was killed in 
action. Beverly received his commission as Second 
Lieutenant of Infantry with me at the First Officers' 
Training Camp at Fort McPherson, Georgia, and was 
assigned to the 56th Infantry at Chickamauga Park. 
Here the 20th Machine Gun Battalion was formed in 
which he afterward became a First Lieutenant. He 



WAR MEMORIES 101 



was killed during an advance, by sTirapnel fire on 
November 1st, in the Meuse-Moselle sector near 
Preney, France, 'Svhile giving commands at one of 
his machine guns."* 

Beverly's remains, wrapped in the Stars and 
Stripes, were laid to rest in his boyhood home, San- 
dersville, Ga., August 7th, 1921, and a month later 
Marcus Beck's remains were buried 'neath the Ued 
Old Hills of Georgia in sight of the house in which 
he wa^s born at Jackson, Ga. Noble Stibolt came all 
the way from his home in Chicago to witness the 
last ceremony of his pal and buddie. Noble never 
knew Marcus until they met in the Marines, but the 
friendship that exists between two buddies who 
slept, marched, fought and faced death together over 
there is cemented by bands that never bend nor 
break. 

Some parents will leave their brave boys buried in 
the soil on which they fell; others want them nearer 
home where they can often visit their graves. Their 
wishes about this are, as they should be, respected by 
our Government. 



*iSince this was written Judge Evans has passed away and is 
buried by his hero son. 



102 WAR M E M O R I E 



PONT-A-MOUSSON 

This time I preceded the battalion two days and 
so I finished locating the various billets and had some 
time to spare and was able to see something of the 
city of Pont-a-OMousson. In peace time the city was 
quite an industrial center. 

The first thing I observed particularly w^as the big 
iron works and I noticed they were practically un- 
touched. I understood that quite a bit of G-erman 
capital was interested in this plant and that was the 
reason it was not shelled or bombed by the airplanes. 

The depot was the most deserted looking place I 
saw. I went through the building. The floors 
were covered with broken window panes, the out- 
side walls were marked by shelling and bombing. 
Weeds had grown up between the double tracks and 
an airplane bomb had been dropped through the 
shed and had broken the rails beneath. 

On the east side of the Moselle river which divided 
the city was probably the tallest mountain that stood 
on the western front, and this time it was in our favor 
because it was on our side of the lines. On top of 
this mountain was a beautiful statue of Joan of Arc. 
It is reported that the Kaiser and the Crown Prince 
expected and had planned to view from the top of 
this mountain, their armies sweeping through the vil- 



WAR MEMORIES 103 



lages towards the south into Nancy,, but this was 
only one of their many dreams that "never came 
true." 

That afternoon, before our battalion was due to 
come up, James Weddington and I climlbed .this 
mountain (from the back side, of course.) There 
was a good system of trenches on top of the moun- 
tain which we went into and we followed one of these 
trenches which led to the foot of the statue of Joan 
of Arc. Here were a good many observers and one 
of them let us have his field glass for a few minutes. 
Straight ahead for miles and miles we could see the 
winding Moselle and about five miles up the river we 
could see the Germans bathing in the stream. To the 
right in the distance we saw the city of Metz and the 
great fortifications around that city. We also saw 
what was said to be the Crown Prince's summer 
home. 

After the first year of the war neither the Ger- 
man nor French front lines moved at this front and 
there was very little activity here. This was even a 
more quiet sector than the one we had just left. 
There were a number of French inhabitants living in 
the city, but as we began to move in they began to 
move out. 

I think there was kind of a "gentleman's agree- 
ment" between the French and German divisions at 



104 WAR MEMORIES 

this particular place on the front that they would do 
very little fighting. Divisions on both sides at the 
front had been sent down from northern France 
where there was activit.y more or less all the time, 
so both Germans and Frenchmen here would ibe 
worn, tired and nervous and they desired to rest. 
Then, too, they had learned that fighting down in 
this part of France would not have much to do with 
deciding the war nor help much to hasten its end. So 
French families could live in their homes in practical 
safety in the city of Pont-a-Mousson. But the 
French inhabitants knew the Americans were fresh 
and new in tlie war and were restless ; they knew 
we could not remain quiet long but would want to 
start something so we could hasten the end of the 
war and go back home, and they knew when we 
started something the Germans would retaliate and 
begin dropping shells on their homes. Hence, as we 
moved in they moved out, leaving their homes and 
furnishings. 

That night my battalion took over our new sector. 
The next day Captain Tillman said he needed me 
back with the company so Major Buxton sent me 
back to my platoon. The first platoon, under Lieuten- 
ant Brown, was the only platoon in the trenches from 
our company. 'Lieutenant Kirby's platoon was bil- 
leted in a three-story brick building, which appeared 



WAR MEMORIES 105 



to have been used for a boarding school in peace 
time. 

While here holding this front line sector some of 
the men of our battalion were billeted in very good 
deserted homes. The inhabitants who moved out 
when we arrived left some of the very finest gar- 
dens. Patrick Cody of New York City, who was 
Captain Tillman's orderly, was very successful in 
locating good gardens, and Captain Tillman, Lieuten- 
ant Kirby, Lieutenant Joel and I had the very 
choicest vegetables every day at noon. At night we 
ate by an electric light, quite a contrast from the 
dim, flickering candles that we had been accustomed 
to at the front. There was a fine piano in the dwell- 
ing bouse in which company headquarters was lo- 
cated. We were too near the enemy to play the piano 
but it did us good just to look at it. Some of the 
French wine and beer were no stronger than our 
grape juice. Almost every afternoon an old man and 
his little girl would drive by in front of company 
headquarters selling beer. It was difficult to realize 
that we were holding a front line sector and at the 
same time having such comforts anci luxuries. 

The reason that we had such freedom on this 
front is because No Man's Land in some places was 
three quarters of a mile wide and we had one com- 
pany from our battalion divided into ^'out posts" 



106 WAR MEMORIES 

and the other three companies acted in support of the 
^'out post" company. 

Lieutenant Judson Garner from Macon, Ga., the 
Battalion Intelligence Officer, sent a patrol order to 
Captain Tillman about noon on August 21. The 
order read that one officer from Company H and 15 
men would lead a patrol that night at a certain time 
and lie in ambush and wait for enemy patrol. The 
purpose of the patrol was to secure identification of 
the enemy. Captain Tillman ordered me to take this 
patrol out that night. The night before Lieutenant 
Joel led a patrol. Up to this time the 82nd Division 
had not captured a prisoner. 

Just before time to go out I got my men together 
and gave them a talk. I inspected to see if any had 
a cold and finding one with a little cough I substi- 
tuted another in his place. I also inspected to see 
that no one was wearing a phosphorous wrist watch 
that would shine in the dark. A listening post out 
in No Man's Land could easily detect a patrol by the 
coughing of one of our men or by a shining wrist 
watch. 

Just before I left on the patrol I wrote the follow- 
ing letter home : 

''France, August 21, 1918. 
Dear home folks: 

Just a little note to you all as it's nearly time for 



WAR MEMORIES 107 

me to take some members of my platoon on a patrol. 
I hope we bring back a prisoner. The Oppice boy 
is no longer in my platoon, but is the captain's run- 
ner. He has just asked me to let him go with us 
tonight. I told him all right, if the captain said so. 
Lots of others asked to go but I can't take more than 
the order calls for unless they get special permission. 
I know I'll come out all right. I know that you are 
praying for me and I'm not the least bit afraid. I'll 
write vou about it tomorrow. I'm well and happy. 
Love to all. FRANK." 

The moon was shining bright that night, a bad 
night for patrolling. We left our trenches and went 
out in No Man's Land. What I saw of my patrol 
climbing over the trench and walking slowly through 
No Man's Land on that moonlit night makes pictures 
that are hidden away in my memory, pictures that I 
so often recall. Some had little bags of hand gren- 
ades, a few had pistols and the rest carried rifles. 
We went up along the right side of the Nancy-Metz 
railroad. After some little distance out we got into 
a deep trench. On our left was the high railroad 
bank, on our right thick barbed wire entanglements. 
We started to go up this deep trench some distance 
but the thought came to me how a German patrol 
up this cut could send a machine gun (they often 
carried machine guns on their natrols) down the other 



108 WAR MEMORIES 



side of the railroad track and slip in behind lis and 
then sweep the trench with machine gnn fire. 

I then led my men back a little way and walked 
up the canal to a mound where we stopped and lay 
in ambush. We were to stay out until 'three-fifteen. 
On our right was a path that the German patrol came 
down two nights before and began cutting our wire 
when our men opened fire on them. 

We were very nicely concealed in the bushes on 
the slope of this mound and my plan was if they 
came down the path that night to wait until they 
had passed and then open fire. About two o'clock 
one of my men crawled over to me and said one of 
the men reported he heard wire cutting just ahead. 
I sent him ^vord not to fire until they came nearer 
and in sight. What he heard was probably the 
"point" of a German patrol. The "point" consists 
of one or two men who usually precede their patrol 
to prevent it from running into the enemy patrol un- 
expectedly. They must have heard our men crawling 
for no other sounds were reported. It was a good 
thing that the patrol order called for an ambush 
patrol as the moon was shining too brightly for any 
other kind. There are several kinds of patrols. The 
reconnoitering patrol is mainly to find out the lay of 
the land and positions. Combat patrolling is mainly 



WAR MEMORIES 109 

for fighting and some patrol orders read that patrol 
shall gain and maintain contact with the enemy. 

'The next time you are in the woods at night, I 
want you to imagine that you are out there "man 
hunting," then you will have an idea of how it feels 
to be on a patrol, otherwise you will never quite 
realize the thrill. 

Three-fifteen finally came and we marched back 
to our billets. The next morning I wrote home. A 
part of the letter is copied below : 

"France, August 22, 1918. 
Dear Papa: 

I have just eaten breakfast and dinner at the same 
time. I w^as tired when I came in from my patrol 
early this morning so slept late. I have quite a bit of 
mail to censor. You see I keep pretty busy. Noth- 
ing unusual happened last night. We were hoping 
to meet a German patrol, but didn't. 

The French continue to gain, as you see from the 
papers. I read yesterday's Paris edition of the New 
York 'Herald and Chicago Tiribune this morning. 
My orderly brought them to me before I got up, so I 
lay in bed awhile and read them. It is wonderful 
the way our Grovernment is sending so many men 
over. The more the better. Even though Germany 
is beginning to realize that she cannot win, yet she 
is going to fight desperately until the last. We are 
full of enthusiasm and want to finish Germany good 
and proper before we quit. Of course, I w^ant to get 
back home, but, like all the other American boys, 



110 WAR M E M O li I E &' 

wouldn't fVcl r\\:\\\ in ^'oiiijij back luitil Germany 
{^ives up or is iiiii out oT all the territory she occu- 
j)ieK that is not hers, and is made to pay for the; diam- 
a^'(^ sh(» has dorn^, and also made to remove those in 
])()VV(w over her. 'V\\{\n our mission will hav<i been 
aeeomplislicd, and \\n\ boys will f^o 'mai-ehin^ home.' 
I have jusl, b(^en talUinj^ to (^aptain Fonvilh; Me- 
Whorlii'. lie has his maehine ^un company mixed 
in with our company. These are bad nights for pa- 
trolling^. The moon shiiu\s almost as brij^ht as day, 
but in llie Americjins' se(tlor, No Man's hand is our 
land. These moonsliininj^ nij^hls arc gnsit nights 
for air raids, because it is diflHcult for our search 
lights to pemitrate tlu; moordight; so it is hard to 
find tlu' planes so as to shoot the anti-aircraft guns 
at llicni. Fivery night we hear the German planes 
going over to bond) one of our nearby cities, and we 
also Ileal- on?' planes going over to bomb a m^arby 
city of theirs. I saw on?" anti-air(*raft hit a (Jerman 
plane yestci'day. It, brok(^ on(^ of its wings, ami the 
f)lan(^ started wobbling. It was higTi, and it wobbled 
<lown and fell on th(» German side of the lines. T 
can think of imthing else to write you this time. I 
hope to get some mail tonight. Love to all. ' 

FRANK.'* 

A LONG NIGHT 

A few nights after that General Lindsey sent for 
Captain Tillman to come to battalion headcpiarters. 
Company 'TI" was then Regimental Reserve. The 
CJenentl told Cnptain Tillman that they ex[)ected the 



WAR M E M li I E H 111 

Germans to make a general ;itt;if!k on our front that 
night. He. did not Hay why h(; f^xpeetf^d an attaek. 
We had variouH wayn of find in j^ out when and where 
the 'Germans wouhl attaek. Our many observation 
balloons often deteeted German troop trains baek of 
i\\i{\r lirl(^s in th(; day timf;; sometimc^s th(;y diseov(tr(;d 
n(;w ammunition flumj>s ;irid various otiicr prcfjara- 
tion.s n('f(;ssjiry foi- miikirif^ a driv^; sometime;-; wf; s*'- 
eurcd information from prisom^rs; any way our (jen- 
eral exf)r;elr'd ;i driv(; on our front THAT night. 

AWv.v looking ov(*r the map showing Ihc ioeations 
of our men, f^-ncnil liindsey told r'afitain Tillman 
to have my [)latoon g(> out in the trenehes just to the 
left of the town as h<- thought the (Germans would try 
to tak(; Pont-a-Mous.son hy fhinking the eity, coming 
dowrj through tin* valh-y to our left. Captain Tillman 
returned to the company and sent for me. After 
showing me these trenches on a map he and I went 
out and located them. I rr-lurrK-d anrl carried my 
platoon out there. 

r told Tny platoon that we (!Xj)eet(;d somc^thing \a) 
happen that night. I placed them in thr; tn;nehes on 
the hillside almost in the bottom of thr-, valley where 
General Lindsey thought the first waves of tin- eri(;my 
would sweep down intr) the eity. I kf;f)t most of my 
men awake, letting a few sleep at a time in reliefs. 
T difl not ftxpect th(* drive to start until tfie r;arly 



112 W A R M EMORIES 

dawn and not a sound was heard until then. The 
popping noise of a machine gun broke the silence 
about 4 :30. I felt then the drive had started. I sent 
a runner to wake up my men. I felt that it was 
just a question of a few minutes before the first 
wave would be coming over the hill and down the 
valley, and after that the "moppers up" to get those 
of us the first wave failed to get. I saw the end near 
but not until we had played our part as best we 
could. 

I listened for more machine gun fire. I listened to 
hear rifles firing. T listened to hear the whistling of 
the first shell from the artillery barrage that usually 
precedes the attack, shelling the front line trenches 
into horrible scenes which are almost beyond de- 
scription; I looked to see the liquid fire streaming 
toward us ; I looked to see a dark, dense smoke screen 
creeping nearer and nearer, concealing the first at- 
tacking troops; I waited to smell the deadly fumes 
of a gas cloud; but these things I expected to hear 
and see never occurred. The popping of the ma- 
chine gun w^as the only sound we heard that night 
on our front. War is like life, oftentimes what we 
most expect never happens, and so frequently the 
unexpected occurs. 

The next day, behind the little hill of trenches, we 
rested uuderneath small trees and bushes out of sight 



WAR MEMORIES 113 

of the enemy's airplane observers and talked and 
slept almost all day. I sent a detail down to Pont-a- 
Monsson at noon for our dinner. 

That night (August 24) a little after dark our bat- 
talion was relieved and we marched back to a camp 
in the woods on the outskirts of Liverdun, a little 
town on the Paris-Nancy railroad. It was here that 
our Gas Officer was sent back to the States as an in- 
structor, and I was ordered to the A. E. F. Gas 
School at Chaumont. 

After a week of intensive training at the Gas 
School, Lieutenant Sam Proctor and I left together 
for our outfit by wa}^ of Paris. 

PARIS PLEASURES SUDDENLY END 

On Monday night, iSeptember 9th, 1918, I was 
sitting in a celebrated Paris restaurant enjoying one 
of those delightfully cooked meals that make the 
French cafes world famous. But my pleasure was 
suddenly brought to an end when I heard an Ameri- 
can officer at the table next to me say that the St. 
Mihiel drive had started two days before. I thought 
it was rather strange there were no accounts in the 
papers about it as the three Paris dailies published 
in English always gave the accounts of the fighting. 
This officer said that they w^ere keeping this drive out 
of the papers. I could see preparations being made 



114 WAR MEMORIES 



for the drive before I left Pont-a-Mousson for the 
Gas School. 

After hearing the above, Paris held no charms for 
me. The delicious dishes, the fine linen and silver, 
the beautiful decorations — these things that I seem- 
ed to have craved and seemed to have been enjoying 
to the fullest now were no longer attra-ctive to me. 

I began to wonder then if I should have been 
routed back to my outfit through Paris. But it was 
the almost unbroken custom to go back through Paris 
after the strenuous week at the Gas School. 

I had just learned how important the duties of a 
Gas Officer were. I learned that the majority of the 
Ameriean casualties were caused from gas. I learn- 
ed a mustard gas shell could burst on a cold day and 
do very little damage and several days afterwards 
the sun could come out and warm up the earth 
around the hole that the shell had made and troops 
could be fatally gassed by passing over this shell 
hole, and I learned many other things at the Gas 
School that w^ould prevent casualties. It was our 
duty to detect the kind of gas by numerous tests and 
tell the men when it w^as safe to pull off their masks. 

I thought about our being in the drive and how 
often the Germans made use of their deadly gas; 
iird the more I thought of all this the more my heart 
ft died. IIow oould I enjoy the pleasures of Paris 



WAR MEMORIES 115 



when I thought that my battalion was in the fight? 

That night I caught the fast Paris-Nancy express. 
When I arrived in Nancy I found out, much to my 
relief, that the drive had not started. Most of my 
way from there to Pont-a-Mousson, where my bat- 
talion was on the front lines again, was up the wind- 
ing beautiful Moselle river. 

On the west side of the river were large naval guns, 
safely hidden by skillful camouflaging. These were 
the big guns that were to play upon the fortifications 
at Metz. I feel as if I can now hear the great roar 
these big naval guns made the next day when they 
chimed in occasionally with the almost continuous 
lesser roaring of the smaller guns. The naval gun's 
discharge was clear and distinct, fairly shaking the 
earth around its base. 

I arrived at battalion headquarters about dark 
and it was then I learned the sad news that our 
Major had been transferred. That night we held a 
battalion officers' meeting— our last before our first 
real engagement. So often had we gathered together 
in officers' meetings. Way back— it seemed ages ago 
then— before we left the iStates, we had our officers* 
meetings ; coming over on the boat we would gather 
together to discuss orders and everything one could 
imagine for the welfare of the battalion and at all 
of these meetings our friend and leader, Major Bux- 



116 WAR MEMORIES 

ton, presided over us, and now at our last meeting 
before the drive, he was absent. Not only the offi- 
cers but the men had heard the news and they, too, 
were feeling his absence. 

As we sat there that night, Captain Howell Fore- 
man, Acting Major, read the battle order. We had 
gone over and discussed everything. We knew which 
company would go over first and in what formation 
and how the other companies would follow. I shall 
never forget that long dead stillness as we were about 
to adjourn the last meeting before the drive. I look- 
ed around the room and the expression on the faces 
showed that somebody was missing. A knock on the 
door broke the stillness and in walked our leader. 
Worried faces brightened into smiles and heavy 
hearts lightened when Major Buxton announced that: 
he was back with us for the drive. 

Just after the meeting, I wrote a hurried note 
home : 

''France, Sept. 11, 1918. 
Dearest home folks: 

I have been mighty busy today, but I can 't do 
another thing until I write to you. Am at the front 
again. I have just returned from the Gas School,, 
and as I expected, I had lots of mail that had accu- 
mulated while I was avN^ay. I get so many letters 
from so many people and they are all so nice. If I 
had to name just one thing that helps more than any 




!V| 



m 



1 "•' 



WAR MEMORIES 117 

other to make a boy feel good when he is fighting" so 
far away from home, I would say it is letters from 
home. Letters are the main thing that keep us con- 
stantly in touch with civilization. The letter from 
Dr. E. L. Hill did me so much good. Letters like that 
make me want to fight all the harder. 

I saw Paris on my way back from the Gas School. 
It's a wonderful city. I couldn't help but be im- 
pressed with one fact, and that was I saw no signs 
of real poverty or hardships. A magnificent city of 
millions, so near the front, and no beggars, streets 
crowded, department stores packed with customers, 
plenty of taxis. 

I'm praying for all of us over here, and you all 
over there, and hope and believe everything will come 
out all right. 

Please be bright, cheerful and happy no matter 
what happens. My whole heart full of love to all. 
I'll write again when I can. Am well and happy. 

Affectionately, 

"frank." 
out of the stillness 

How^ often have I seen a black cloud roll madly 
between me and the shining sun and in a little while 
the stillness of the summer's afternoon broken by 
loud blasts of thunder and fierce flashes of lightning. 
And so, too, on the morning of 'September the 12th, 
1918, at 1:00 A. M., the dead stillness of the ni^ht 



118 WAR MEMORIES 



was broken by the roariiig and thundering of 
thousands of our guns that started the greatest bar- 
rage of the World War up to that time, with four 
hours of continuous artillery fire using more than 
1,000,000 rounds of ammunition and at 5:00 A. M., 
just as day was breaking, our first waves of infantry- 
men went over the top. 

I can see now the constant flashes from artillery 
that made night seem almost like day and I can hear 
the terrific explosions from the big guns sending out 
sound waves that made the air around us ciuiver. 

For three years the St. Mihiel salient was compar- 
atively a quiet resting place for worn out divisions. 
Now the American boys, mostly in their twenties, 
were about to make their first major offensive in the 
World War. Boys who, the German High Command 
said, would never get across the sea, and if they did 
could never withistand ^^the trained armies iof hi^ 
wonderful Empire — these boys were now going into 
a major offensive that would add glory to the record 
already achieved at Chateau-Thierry and another 
stepping stone to fighting just a few v/eeks ahead that 
would prove to be the brightest page in American 
battles fought on foreign soil. Thus the drive began 
that resulted in over 16,000 of the enem}^ captured 
and many French villages liberated. 

Our regiment was on the pivot of the "swing in," 



WAR MEMORIES 119 



SO to speak, of the salient. The first day of the drive 
(Sept. 12) our battalion did not advance, as we were 
waiting for the 90th Division on our left to straighten 
out the line, but our artillery sent over many shells 
about a mile north of us into and around the town 
of Norroy. One company from our battalion (Com- 
pany F) sent out platoons during the day. Lieuten- 
ant Bertrand Cox, Lieutenant Charles Harrison and 
Lieutenant James Gould carried their platoons out, 
gaining contact with the enemy. Late that afternoon, 
I was with Major Buxton as runners would bring in 
reports about the fighting of Captain Foreman's 
company. I shall never forget what our Major said 
when he received the news that Lieutenant Charles 
Harrison of Columbus, Ga., had been killed. He 
thought a minute and then said that if it had to 
happen he was glad that Charles did not have to 
suffer any. He said that he could not bear the 
thought of Charles having to suffer or being cap- 
tured and mistreated. 

It seems that the death angel takes the brightest 
and happiest when he visits our homes in peace time 
and the same seemed to me true in war that after- 
noon, for on the battlefield he had taken the flower 
of our battalion. We never gathered together that 
Charles' presence did not fill our hearts with sun- 
shine. Very seldom that he did not start the 



120 WAR MEMORIES 

''bunch" to singing bright, cheery songs, and I can 
hear him now leading his favorite, 
"It's alwaj^s fair weather 
When good fellows come together." 

How hard it was for us to realize that Charles had 
been killed. And while I was thinking about Charles, 
the thought ran through my mind that this was only 
the beginning, that those of us wiio would come 
through alive would see many of our comrades laid 
to rest amid the shell holes, and before a month had 
passed, gas, bullets and shrapnel had dropped many 
of our comrades amongst the poppies. Are you not 
thinking how, or rather have you not often thought, 
of how we felt as our comrades fell in battle ? 'Some 
may think that in the excitement of the fighting we 
would not have time to feel the loss of our buddies, 
but not so. Always fighting with the fierce American 
spirit but never did a member of our battalion family 
fall out that it did not seem as if daggers were pierc- 
ing our hearts. How could it be otherwise? Side by 
side we had trained, marched and slept together, 
and then when our ranks began thinning out in line 
of battle, our hearts ached and bled with indescrib- 
able, silent grief, as on that afternoon when we heard 
that Lieutenant Charles Harrison lay out between us 
and the enemy, having given everything for America. 



WAR MEMORIES 121 



NORROY 



The afternoon of September 13, 1918, battalion 
headquarters moved out to the front line and ad- 
vanced with the companies as soon as the various ele- 
ments of the battalion could be assembled for the 
attack. The IJ27th Infantry was just across the 
Moselle river on our right. Lieutenant W. M. 
Weaver, from Macon, Ga., a first cousin of mine, was 
in this regiment. Just before we ''went over the 
top" at the end of the afternoon, I watched a raid 
by the 827th on Bel Air Farm. It was too far away 
to see any of the men, but there was evidence of 
quite a bit of fighting. I saw what I thought to be 
a smoke screen and varions forms of liquid fire, 
heard the popping of machine guns and saw a great 
deal of shelling. All the time I was wondering about 
my cousin. 

Just before we were ready to start over, old 
Jouffrett, the interpreter, got a bad case of rheuma- 
tism and he told me he did not think he could make 
it, as he could hardly walk, but the next day he 
showed up in Norroy and was certainly glad to see 
me. 

Lieutenant-'Colonel Richard Wetherill was now with 
us. He, Major Buxton, Lieutenant Wood, battalion 
headquarters' runners and I pushed across No Man's 



122 WAR MEMORIES 

Land towards Norroy with the other companies in 
the early dusk. We did not follow the roads as we 
thought they would probably be shelled, so we cut 
across the fields and our progress was slowed very 
much by the great mass of barbed wire entangle- 
ments. As we got about half way to Norroy, we 
noticed a house in the town on fire. In a few minutes 
the blazes from this house brightened up so that 
we were able to see the outline of the housetops in 
the village. I thought the Germans on leaving had 
set the town on fire, but later it was discovered that 
only one home burned, and this is supposed to have 
been fired by reason of the shelling from our ar- 
tillery. 

I remember as we were walking along I heard a 
peculiar whistling noise in the bushes nearby. I 
told Colonel Wetherill and Major Buxton that it 
might be a German giving signals. We stopped and 
found that it was just an innocent little bird. Every 
little noise attracted us. Just before we reached the 
outskirts of Norroy, we heard voices a little to our 
right. We found it was Lieutenant Kirby Stewart 
talking to his platoon, getting them through some 
bad places. 

We entered Norroy through a hole in a stone wall 
that a shell had made, and walked up a side street 
into the main street of the town. The only noise 



WAR MEMORIES 123 

that we heard was the running of water in the little 
fountain in the middle of the main street and a few 
barks from a lonely dog. 

But we were not alone in Norroy that night. We 
thought we were, but there were others — others 
whose hearts were heavy — others who had endured 
years of hardships under the enemy and now were 
subjected to the most terrible horrors and fright. 

Four years (lacking ten days) before this time, the 
Germans entered and captured the town and with it 
many inhabitants who did not have time to escape. 
The Germans sent some of the inhabitants back to 
work in ammunition factories and do other work, 
and some were kept in the town to work for the sol- 
diers holding it. We dropped many shells into Nor- 
roy before going into the town. The Germans as they 
withdrew tried to carry all of the French inhabi- 
tants with them. They left in such a hurry that 
about seventeen (mostly old men and women) hid in 
the cellars. It is reported that they dragged an 
old Priest out bareheaded. 

About an hour after we went into Norroy, I dozed 
off to sleep for a few hours and awoke just as it was 
getting light. I decided to walk around the town and 
started out a street toward the northern end of the 
village. I looked up and I could hardly believe what 
T ^-aw before me — it was a woman running towards 



124 WAR MEMORIES 

me, crying, with mouth bleeding and body trembling. 
She tried to tell me her feelings. The Germans had 
warned her against the American soldiers. Down 
the street she could see other American soldiers who 
were also rambling around. After going through the 
awful shelling the night and day before she probably 
thought that she had now reached the end of it all. 
Of the little French I knew, none of it seemed to fit 
in a case like this, but I think she could tell from my 
expression and the soft way I patted her on her arm 
that the Americans were not there to harm her, but 
instead to deliver her from four long years of 
anxious, weary and dreadful life. 

I then sent for one of my men who could speak 
French and he assured her in the best French words 
he could possibly put together, that the Americans 
had come over to help fight for her country. iShe 
recovered from her fright and carried us about two 
blocks away and down into a cellar, where a lady 
wounded during the shelling was lying on a bed and 
crying. She told us of her old father who was 
caught underneath a fallen building nearbj^ 

As the sun rose higher and higher we could see 
more and more of the inhabitants coming out of 
cellars. We advised them to get out of the town as 
quickly as possible. I can see the picture now they 
made leaving Norro}^ that afternoon, sitxeen or sev- 



WAR MEMORIES 121 



enteen of them, mostly old men and women, carrying 
in their little baskets strapped on their backs all they 
were able to take away. They hadn't gone very far 
before they heard their home town shelled by the 
Germans as it wa^ never shelled before. At the same 
time it w^as gassed with a deadly gas. 

I went back down the street to where we had our 
battalion headquarters, and I found a dozen or more 
gathered around a tall, shabbily dressed, hungry 
looking prisoner. We asked him many questions. 
He said a number of Germans did not withdraw from 
the town until shortly before we entered. This was 
evident by the food we found on several tables partly 
eaten. The prisoner said he had no idea of the num- 
ber of American soldiers in France. 

There w^ere many interesting things discovered 
that morning as we scattered through the town. The 
first thing I saw of interest was a German officers' 
club room. In it were a number of cigarettes and a 
good many boxes of cigars. I found a box of cigars 
named the "Kaiser." 

The Germans seemed to have plenty of sugar and 
a good deal of American canned milk. After I ram- 
bled through these club rooms I went next door. 
''Have a drink. Lieutenant?" one of my old platoon 
boys said, who was behind the counter and serving 
beer to his friends. He turned the faucet under- 



126 WAR MEMORIES 



neath the counter and the beer came out of a long 
curved tube that reached about three feet above the 
counter. It reminded me of the way the drug stores 
served drinks when I was a little boy. Then I walked 
out and .saw my old platoon boys rolling a keg of 
beer down the street over the rough stones that had 
fallen from the wrecked stores. 

Do not misunderstand me here. At no time did 
wine or beer interfere with the American boys fight- 
ing. The beer in Norroy was mild and the men in 
the town touched it sparingly. 

Almost every little French village had a flowing 
fountain on tlie main street in the center of the vil- 
lage. This part of France is hilly and most of the 
towns were built in valleys and tlie inhabitants could 
utilize their springs and little streams to good ad- 
vantage. 

A number of boys were shaving at the fountain in 
Norroy that morning. Laying their steel mirrors on 
the stone around the fountain and lathering their 
faces with the fresh flowing water, fhey made a pic- 
ture that made one feel as if the war was being fought 
far away. 

We found several goats and a number of fat Bel- 
gian rabbits left in the town and our mess sergeant 
planned a big feast, but you will see later we had no 
time for feasting. 



WAR MEMORIES 127 



This good time walking through the town, looking 
for souvenirs, etc., did not last long. The Germans 
were never idle. Their field glasses were focused on 
us from nearby hilltops, and it was not long before 
they communicated to their artillery that Norroy was 
filled witli American soldiers. 

THE GAS ATTACK 

Just before the shelling began our old interpreter 
came up to me and said: ''Mr. Holden, have you an 
extra gas mask for me? I left mine in Pont-a-Mous- 
son." 

Fortunately, I had one extra mask that I brought 
with me through the thick barbed wire entanglements 
the night before into Norroy. Sometimes a piece of 
shrapnel would hit a mask and thereby render it use- 
less, so I carried an extra one for use in case of emer- 
gency. This was an emergency. A few minutes after 
I gave Mr. Jouffrett the mask the shelling began and 
if I had not carried the extra mask with me the old 
man w'ould never have done any more banking bus- 
iness in Paris. 

The shelling began about noon. The little village 
was in a valley. The Germans had weather experts 
on every front and they always figured in their gas 
attacks. That afternoon the wind was blowing mild- 



128 WAR M E M R 1 E 



\y in a southeastern direction. The Germans dropped 
their first shells (about three hundred) filled .with 
sneezing gas, in the northwestern part of the town 
and this sneezing gas was blown through the town. 

I was Battalion Gas Officer. At the Gas School I 
became familiar with the odor of the gases and when 
the first shell burst I immediately detected sneezing 
gas and knew that we were in for a siege of it. I 
went through the village and the trenches near the 
village to have every man put on his gas mask. 
Some had theirs on before I got to them. 

I knew that the sneezing gas was a forerunner of 
some of the fatal gases. Their object was to get our 
men to sneezing so they would not be able to keep on 
their masks when they shelled us with their deadly 
gas. I only remember one man who sneezed so that 
he was unable to keep on his mask. 

After the village was filled Avith this sneezing gas 
the shelling ceased. It was then that my Gas Ser- 
geant and I kept busy running through Norroy, 
telling the men to keep on their masks ; that if they 
did not they would be unable by inhaling the sneez- 
ing gas to keep them on in a few minutes when we 
would be shelled with phosgene or mustard gas. 

The Germans decided on their deadly mustard gas 
and they began sending it over mixed with high ex- 
plosives. They were trying to scatter it so that the 



WAR MEMORIES 129 

liquid would spatter on us, burning our flesh before 
it evaporated into the fumes when it would burn our 
lungs. Shells filled with shrapnel and gas were burst- 
ing through the town and many of them hit very 
close to us. 

About 3 :00 o'clock I went into battalion headquar- 
ters, a hall which the Germans used for a soldiers' 
club and dining room. It was rather dark in there. 
High explosives were knocking down a few large 
buildings just a little way up the street. My ! what 
if one of those big shells had hit this old hall. Lieu- 
tenant "Wood was trying to take orders over the 
phone from regimental headquarters with his mask 
on. There were about thirty men in the room. Col- 
onel Wetherill would ask me every now and then if 
it was safe for them to take off their masks. I would 
test and say ''No!" and they would all give a long 
sigh. I then ran out on the hillside in the trenches 
and scented no gas there at all, but when I looked 
down into Norroy the gas clung in the valley town as 
smoke settles in lowlands on a hot summer's after- 
noon. 

While returning to battalion headquarters, I pass- 
ed Lieutenant Joel stretched out in a doorway. He 
had gotten too much gas, but soon recovered after 
staying in a hospital a few days. When I arrived at 
battalion headquarters I found the hall still filled 



130 WAR MEMORIES 

with gas. I then went out on the northwestern edge 
of the town and found a house there that would do 
for battalion headciuarters. I immediately went again 
to battalion headquarters and suggested to Major 
Buxton to move headquarters out there, which he 
did. How lucky we were in doing so, because not 
long after that shells knocked this building down, 
and if we had stayed there probably all of us would 
have been buried beneath the fallen walls. After 
moving to our new headquarters we pulled off our 
masks after wearing them four long hours. Here 
we stayed until midnight, when the 3rd Battalion 
under Major Hammond Johnson, of Athens, Ga., re- 
lieved us. 

When the shelling ceased for a while during the 
afternoon, stretcher bearers began bringing the 
wounded from the 360th Infantry of the 90th Di- 
vision through Norroy. Some of the wounded men 
had to stay in Norroy until after dark as the roads 
back of the town were under enemy observation and 
were being shelled and very few ambulances could get 
through. 

One of the wounded was too pitiful to describe. 
He had to sit up on the stretcher. His back, chest 
and face were a solid burning blister where the hor- 
rible mustard gas had spattered on him. Not only 
that, but the awful gas fumes had gotten into his 
lungs and he was breathing heavily. This, I think, 



WAR MEMORIES 131 

was the most pitiful sight I saw in France. With 
a high fever, sick, and suffering agonies, he could not 
lie down. Every step the stretcher bearers took meant 
more pain to this boy — and yet with it all I saw him 
smile. They were out of water and I held my can- 
teen to his feverish lips and I saw a smile come on 
his burning and blistered face. 

There w^as one casualty during that afternoon from 
Company '^H" I wish to mention. Lacey M. Strick- 
land, present Tax Collector of Elbert County, Geor- 
gia, was hit by a high explosive and immediately 
became blind, deaf and dumb and his mind for sev- 
eral months afterwards was a complete blank. He 
regained consciousness five months later in a hospital 
in Buffalo, N. Y. His recovery was a miracle to the 
medical profession. 

When we left the town it w^as still saturated with 
the gas and I stationed guards at both ends of the 
main street to prevent any one from passing through 
the village until they put on their masks. 

We went back of the lines that night for a much 
needed rest. Major Johnson's Battalion was ordered 
to advance the next day in broad daylight, in plain 
view of the enemy artillery, and they suffered many 
casualties before they reached their objective. 

About midnight we started marching back. I 
stopped and slept a few hours in our old battalion 



132 WAR MEMORIES 

headquarters in Pont-a-Mousson. I heard the Oer- 
man artillery knocked this chateau down a few days 
after we were relieved. 

It was noon the next day when we arrived in 
Dieulouard, a little village a few^ miles further back. 

1 got something to eat and then went to sleep about 

2 :00 'clock in the afternoon, in a soft bed in an up- 
stairs room in a deserted home, and slept until noon 
the next day. I was amazed when I awoke from my 
long sleep to find in the road, about 50 yards from 
the house in which I had slept so soundly, that a 
shell from a long range German gun that night had 
killed several men and four horses. The men had 
been removed when I saw the scene, but the four 
large horses lay stretched on the ground, disjointed 
and mangled. 

Then I went to the company kitchen to get some- 
thing to eat, where I learned that when the shelling 
began nearly everybody ran to the large dugouts in 
the hillside and spent the night in them. After I 
finished eating, T went down the hill and sat alone for 
an hour by the little creek. How quiet it seemed — a 
lull after so much noise and confusion, the stillness 
and calm only broken by the sound of the stream 
running over the rocks. 

After thinking of all I had been through and seen, 
I wanted to write home, and while everything was 



WAR MEMORIES 133 

fresh on my mind I went back to my room and wrote 
the following letter: 

''Monday, Sept. 16; 1918. 
Dearest Mama and Papa: 

After hours of terrific artillery bombardment, I 
climbed a tall tree at early dawn last Friday the 
13th, and saw our advance waves go over the top, 
which started our big 'birthday present' drive for 
General Pershing. Later on in the day I went over 
the top and about twelve o'clock that night we were 

in town. (Note: Stating names of towns 

in letters then forbidden by censor.) 

I have often thought how others and I would feel 
just before going over the top. I have often won- 
dered if there would be any signs of sadness. Every 
man seemed happy, cheerful and bright, and the 
expression I heard most was 'with the best of luck' 
as friends Avould pass ' going over. ' 

I guess you are wondering now about the casual- 
ties. I am not allowed to tell who they are, but can 
say they were light. I emptied my canteen giving 
the wounded water. They were all smiles, not a 
groan did I hear from any of them. (Here I told in 
detail about my experience in Norroy, which I have 
already written.) 

I guess you are wondering where I am. Major 
Johnson's Battalion relieved us and we are back of 
him. I think he has advanced further. I was com- 
pletely worn out and I am just up now from twenty- 
two hours of sleep. I had slept but little for three 
days, and until breakfast this morning I had only a 



134 WAR MEMORIES 



bar of cliocolate, some hard tack and a box of sar- 
dines to eat. 

Almost every one else slept in a dugout last night. 
They went to them when the Germans sent over some 
of their big long range shells, which hit nearby. I 
would have gone too, had I heard tliem. One hit 
about 50 yards from me ; I slept too soundly to 
hear it. 

I have so many things to tell that 111 wait and 
write them later; then there are so many things I 
would like to write, but am not allowed. 

I have often heard of little steel mirrors and little 
trench Bibles warding off bullets and saving lives, 
and I used to wonder if it was true. I know it 's true 
now, for I have seen several cases of that kind. There 
are so many narrow escapes, bullets hitting the end 
of a helmet or edging off one's coat sleeve. 

Mama, when you and Aunt Anna used to sit in 
the grandstand at a Mercer-University of Georgia 
game and watch your boys play ball against each 
other, you never dreamed that soon they would be 
fighting together as hard as we used to fight for our 
Alma Mater against each other. William was on one 
side of the river and I was on the other, during the 
advance. Love to all. 

FRANK." 

In a couple of days our entire division was re- 
lieved and we were marched back a few miles and 
were billeted on a steep mountain, near the town of 
Marbache. 

Almost evervbodv had gotten a little gas and it 



WAR MEMORIES 135 

was telling on us. We felt tired and weak. My Gas 
Sergeant made a number of tests for gas, as I did, 
and he got so much gas during these tests that I sent 
him to the hospital. We did not know where we 
would go next. While there I wrote the following 
letter: 

''France, Sept. 18, 1918. 
Dearest Papa and Mama : 

Now we are back of the lines, far enough back not 
to hear the guns firing. God spared me through, 
three days of fighting. My nerves held up very well 
and I stood the strain fine. I just happened not to 
be where the shells would burst. Often they would 
burst at the place just where I left. T wish you 
could hear us get together and tell each other about it. 

One of our Lieutenants had one of the most re- 
markable experiences IVe ever heard or read about. 
A shrapnel shell burst overhead and killed a wound- 
ed member of his platoon that he held in his arms. 
He then sent two of his men a few yards to the side 
to observe and they were immediately killed by shell 
fire. A Lieutenant-Colonel was then wounded near 
him. He carried the Colonel back to the dressing 
station where he died in a little while. These are a 
few of the things that this Lieutenant experienced. 
He said he was hoping daring this experience that 
a shell would hit him, but he came out untouched. 

(NOTii^. :— The Lieutennnt referred to in this letter is Lieutenant 
Luther H. Waller of Montgomery, Alabama. He was wounded 
later, October 9. in the Argonne Forest and was cited in Division 
Orders for bravery. The Lieutenant-Colonel mentioned in the 
letter was Colonel Emory .T. Pike. Division Machine Gun Officer. 
The Congressional Medal of Honor was posthumouslv awarded 
him.) 



136 WAR MEMORIES 



I don't know where we will go from here, and if I 
did I would not be permitted by the censor to tell 
you. I am going to cable you tomorrow as I know 
you are anxious about me. We wore our masks four 
hours when they shelled the town we captured. Col- 
onel Wetherill and Major Buxton and lots of others 
complimented me very highly on my work as Oas 
Officer. I got nearly as many compliments as I did 
when I got the three base hit in 1914 that won the 
Georgia-Tech game. I feel much prouder of this, 
because then I saved the game, but this time I had 
the responsibility of more than 4.000 men (others 
beside our battalion) and many told me, especially 
the Battalion Doctor, that I saved many casualties. 
My platoon had very few casualties but lots of others 
lost over half. 

"What do you think of the Austrian peace move? 
We don't think much of it, as no doubt Grermany is 
behind it. Peace talk makes us fight harder. I would 
feel mighty bad if peace would be declared before 
we reached Germany, and I have no doubt that it is 
only a question of a short while before we'll show 
German}^ a picture of some of their villages changed 
like the picturesque French villages into piles of 
broken walls and smashed furniture and all the other 
comforts of home life in utter ruin. Love to all. 

FRANK." 



WAR MEMORIES 137 

A LONG RIDE 

On the morning of September 24, I saw one of the 
prettiest sights of ray life. We marched out several 
miles to board trucks for the Argonne Forest. The 
entire division was to be moved over a hundred miles 
in trucks. As we marched to the top of a hill, I 
looked as far as I could see over hills where these 
trucks had lined up waiting for us. It reminded me 
of the last scene in ''Polly of the Circus" when the 
circus is moving away over the hills. 

Most of us had to stand up all the Avay. Thanks 
for the good military roads in France. Standing up 
a hundred miles in a truck on some of our bumpy 
roads would be enough to put one in the hospital. 

We liad gone about twenty kilometers when we 
came to a truck whicli had turned over in a ditch 
while rounding a cui-ve. They waved us down. A 
few boys from the overturned truck got in with us; 
others waited to get in the trucks behind us. The 
injured were put in the truck in front of us and in a 
couple of minutes we were off as if nothing had hap- 
pened. Quite a happening in peace time — a small 
matter in time of war. 

On we rode, over a hundred miles, truck after truck 
with hundreds of motors humming, passing through 
vi]]age after village, up hill and down hill, carrying 



138 WAR MEMORIES 

thousands of boys in khaki to their resting place in 
the Argonne. 

Military roads saved France. It saved her back 
in the early days of the war when thousands of 
taxi cabs, touring cars and trucks lined the good road 
from Bar Le Due to Verdun, and the French jump- 
ing out of their vehicles on the run, rushed against 
the flower of Kaiser Wilhelm's trained forces, piling 
German on German, blocking the break through their 
lines in the attempted ''round about way" to Paris. 
"They shall not pa>s.s, '' was the cry of these coura- 
geous sons of France ; they did not pass. They would 
have passed if years before this time France had not 
built the good road from Bar Le Due to Verdun, be- 
cause the French soldiers would not have been there 
to stop the onrushing Germans. 

There were many other times and places that these 
good roads saved the day for France. Let us hope 
that our Government will profit by this example. 
Our country has the most wonderful network of rail- 
road systems in the world today, but one shell can 
block transportation by rail. It takes more time to 
repair a railroad than a dirt or concrete road. 

That afternoon about 3:00 o'clock our truck stop- 
ped in the city of Bar Le Due. This was a lively lit- 
tle city. Here we got out and bought all the fruit we 
could eat. Every fruit stand gleamed with large 



WAR MEMORIES 139 

juicy buuches of white grapes. I cannot remember 
when the French did not have delicious grapes for 
sale in their towns. Here I remember seeing our 
Commanding Officer, General Burnham, who stopped 
a while in the city on his way to his new headquar- 
ters. 

THE ARGONNE FOREST 

We went into the southern edge of the Argonne 
Forest on the night of September 26. For days and 
nights we listened to the guns along the front. Late 
every afternoon a truck would bring from Bar Le 
Due the Paris dailies printed in English and we read 
of the drive that extended from the North Sea to 
Switzerland. We did not know w^hen we would go 
up to do our part. Our division w^as Army Reserve 
and attached to the First Army Corps. 

We did very little drilling and training during our 
waiting. Our General did not know w^hat minute w^e 
would be ordered into the fight so we w'ere kept ready 
to go in at any time. The men of Company ''H" 
had comfortable barracks just off the road in the 
woods, but the men of the other companies slept in 
little "pup" tents on muddy ground on the side of 
the road. 

There w^ere a number of small one-room wooden 
huts on the side of a hill. Lieutenant Junius Emer- 



140 WAR MEMORIES 



son, the battalion dentist, and I had a hut together. 
We had a nice little stove in the hut and plenty of 
wood to keep off the October chill. I had a supply 
of good cigars at this time, plenty of candles and 
we spent the nights enjojnng smoking, reading the 
Paris dailies, writing letters and talking. The thun- 
dering artillery barrage that we would hear at night, 
we would read about two nights later in our little hut. 

M. Jouffrett, our interpreter, would often give me 
the advance news about the movement of our di- 
vision, usually getting his information from the 
French Mission attached to our divisional headquar- 
ters. While ^ve were camped here in the edge of the 
Argonne Forest I remember Mr. Jouffret said to me : 

''Mr. Holden, I have some news." 

''What is it, Mr. JouffrettT' I said. 

"It is zis, ze 82nd Division will never go into ze 
big drive, unless zey cannot do wizout us." 

"Why not?" I asked. 

"It is because ze 82nd Division has so much of ze 
foreign blood in zem." 

The old interpreter missed his guess this time, or 
the French Mission misinformed him. A few days 
after that our division that had, as the interpreter 
said, foreign blood flowing through the veins of many 
of its men, played a most important part in the drive 



WAR MEMORIES 141 



and stayed in action longer Avithout a rest than any 
other division of the A, E. F. Not only that, but a 
few days from that time a sergeant from our division 
distinguished himself so as to be acclaimed by Mar- 
shal Foeh as the greatest hero of the World War. 
Sergeant Alvin York, of Pall Mail, Tenn., killed 
twenty Germans and took one hundred and thirty- 
two prisoners and I am proud of the fact that he was 
a member of my battalion and was officered by a man 
(Captain E, C. B. Danforth, Jr.) from my former 
home town, Augusta, Ga. 

On October 3rd, we moved forward toward the 
fighting, marching past the "jumping off point" 
where the drive started, across the once No Man's 
Land. The No Man's Land that we had known was 
a large tract of land, a few shell holes here and there 
and almost covered with French daisies, but this No 
Man's Land was quite different. Here the French 
and the German trenches in some places had been 
only a few yards apart and they had engaged in the 
most terrible kind of fighting, such as tunneling under 
their opponents' trenches and laying mines to be set 
off unexpectedly. It was a sight one would have to 
see to really comprehend how fearful and dreadful 
it appeared. 

There are many pictures taken of these horrible 
sights but none of them give an adequate idea of the 



142 WAR MEMORIES 



original. This No Man's Land was once a thick for- 
ast but now had no signs of life — trees standing here 
and there, a few having scarred limbs, the majority 
no limbs at all, some having a little bark left, others 
cnt in two by a direct shell liit, and the ground hav- 
ing been npturned over and over again by shells of 
all kinds and sizes. 

We marched out of this desert of destruction into 
the territory recently held by the Germans, At every 
cross roads were large Oerman signs. I saw num- 
bers of German graves and they were neatly kept. 
There was a little wooden lattice fence around many 
of the graves I saw and iron croases on some of the 
tombstones. 

That night we slopped on a little hillside and camp- 
ed until the night of October 6th, w^hen w^e marched 
up into the drive. 

THE SERMON ON THE HILLSIDE 

Sunday morning, October the 6th, 1918, Lieuten- 
ant Daniel iS. ;Smart of Cambridge, N. Y., our Chap- 
lain, and I were sitting together on a bench in front 
of an old German dugout that we had slept in the 
previous night. There are many incidents of my 
overseas experience that I w^ill forget, but the one that 
I am telling about now will never pass out of my 
memory. 



WAR MEMORIES 143 

We were in the Argonne Forest, just a little south- 
east of Varennes. That Sunday morning the sun 
was shining as bright and pretty as it ever did and 
the mild October breeze was sprinkling our little 
hillside with brown, yellow leaves from the trees 
around us. We expected any minute to go forward 
into the drive. The Chaplain did not have to an- 
nounce that he was going to preach that morning. 
As we sat there talking, our conversation drifted to 
the *' folks at home," and he showed me some kodak 
pictures of his father and mother taken in a rock- 
ing chair on their front porch. As we talked the 
boys would pass by and ask the Chaplain what time 
he was going to hold services. "At ten o'clock, just 
up there on the hillside," he would say. 

At ten o'clock the little hillside was covered with 
boys. The Chaplain took from his pocket his trench 
Bible and read the fourth ehapter of Paul's second 
letter to Timothy, and he took for his text the sev- 
enth verse: *'I have fought a good fight, I have fin- 
ished my course, I have kept the faith." 

Sitting there on the ground that the Germans oc- 
cupied a few days before, I listened to Lieutenant 
Smart make remarks as touching as any to which 1 
have ever listened. He was preaching next to the last 
sermon he ever preached to many boys who listened 
to the last sermon they ever heard on this earth, for 



144 WAR MEMORIES 



that night we marched iiito the fight and some of 
the boys who sat there on the hillside that Sunday 
morning died for America before the sun went down 
the next day, and a few days afterwards our 
Chaplain lost his life, too, while seeing about the re- 
mains of some of his men who had fallen. 

How often have I thought about that sermon on 
the hillside in the Argonne that Sunday morning. 
How appropriate it w^as for Lieutenant Smart to 
have preached the sermon he did to so many who 
were listening to their last sermon — he could not 
have chosen a more beautiful text and his words 
could not have been more beautifully spoken. He 
did fight a good fight, and he kept the faith and 
eight days after this sermon he finished his course. 

How fitting Paul's letter was for the Scripture 
reading. These are a few of the verses we heard that 
morning just a little way back of the place where 
so many were making the supreme sacrifice and to 
which we were to march that night : 

''But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, 
do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy 
ministry. 

For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of 
my departure is at hand. 

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my 
course, I hav^ kept the faith: 



WAR MEMORIES 145 



Henceforth there is laid up for me a crowji of 
righteousness. ' ' 

ON THE ROADS 

That afternoon (October 6th) we received our 
orders to prepare to move up toward the fighting. 
About dark, Captain Tillman, Acting Major of the 
2nd Battalion, told me to report to the supply com- 
pany and take charge of a supply train of amraunf- 
tion and food and to bring my train directly behind 
his battalion. The supply company was a few hun- 
dred yards away. I was given a horse to ride and 
four wagons called "British limbers," filled with 
food and ammunition, and four men from the supply 
company were assigned to the transport — a man for 
each horse and wagon. 

I lined my combat train behind our battalion and 
about 10 o'clock we started our march. The night 
was very dark and it began to rain. The road on 
which we marched was the only one leading to the 
front for many miles around. We seemed to make 
good progress until we arrived at Varennes where 
another road came into the one we had to travel and 
the traffic there began to thicken. We met outfits 
which had been relieved coming back from the 
front. Messengers on motorcycles would rush by. 
We marched a while, then stopped a while. Military 



146 WAR MEMORIES 

Police would yell: ''Hold up there! move to right of 
road; make room for an ambulance to pass!" Re- 
member, there was total darkness. A match struck 
or any light at all would have meant ruination for us. 
If the Germans had shelled the road we were on that 
night (they were good on hitting the middle of the 
road) it would have taken a long time for one to have 
counted the number of our dead and wounded. Broad- 
way and Fifth Avenue were never more crowded. 
The confusion, congestion, jam and push cannot be 
fully described. The skill with which truck, motor- 
cycle, and ambulance drivers made their way through 
the darkness over the front line roads was remark- 
able. Lieutenant John H. Bocock of Richmond, Va., 
(who was cited for bravery in action) formerly of 
Athens, Ga., gave an excellent idea of such a condi- 
tion in the History which he wrote of his outfit (Sec- 
tion 539, U. S. Army Ambulance Service, with the 
French Army), when he said: "At night the dark- 
ness was intense, and the drivers had^ literally to feel 
iheir way.^' 

When I would come to a fork in the roads I did 
not know which way to go. Fortunately an M. P. 
was stationed at every cross roads and they directed 
me to the road the 328th Infantry men were taking. 
My battalion was marching in columns of twos and 



WAR MEMORIES 147 



they could march off the roads and around some of 
the jam. Hence, they were a little ahead of me. 

Nearer and nearer the front we slowly moved along 
the road and just as day was breaking and the sun 
spread it first dim rays and we could barely see the 
country around us, 1 looked on the left side of the 
road and there I saw for the first time in my life a 
dead soldier on the battlefield — a German soldier 
with his rifle lying by his side. 

During my childhood days long before I learned to 
read, I used to sit and listen to war stories and was 
told of the battles and of men being killed, and later 
on I studied about wars that had made history and 
nations, but now I had lived to see for myself a dead 
form lying on the battlefield; a soldier of the great 
military machine of Kaiser Wilhelm, having paid his 
all as two million of his comrades had done, for the 
ambitious ruler, who told Ambassador James W. 
Gerard: ''Where Alexander and Napoleon failed, I 
have dreamed of world dominion." We moved for- 
ward, carrying our ammunition to be used in bring- 
ing other German soldiers just ahead of us to their 
last. 

I passed Lieutenant Sam Proctor of Macon, Ga. 
He was also riding a horse. I immediately thought 
of the three hundred francs I borrowed from him 
when we were together in Paris. I had with me a lit- 



148 WAR MEMORIES 

tie over tliis amount, so I handed him three one hun- 
dred franc notes. But he insisted that this was no 
time to be talking about francs. I told him I was 
going a little further than he that morning (Sam was 
in the artillery) and I might be killed or captured 
and I wanted him to take the francs. Thus the money 
I borrowed in gay Paris was paid in the Argonne 
when we could hardly hold our horses still because 
of the shelling nearby. 

After paying the debt we moved on slowly. About 
one hundred yards from there, at a fork in the road, 
my horse became badly frightened at the sight of 
dead Germans and horses killed by our artillery. The 
horses and Germans were terribly mutilated. Every 
time after that my horse would shy at the dead. 

We moved on a little further until we came to a 
little valley and I led the combat train off the right 
side of the road, where we found most of our bat- 
talion in a long gully. I can see General Lindsey 
now, a tall figure, mingling here and there with his 
men in the little gully. He had his headquarters in 
a little tin covered hut which we called an elephant's 
back. The Germans made them. I do not know what 
they called them. They were little tin-roofed huts, 
used by the Germans to shelter their reserve supply 
of ammunition. 



WAR MEMORIES 149 



IN THE LITTLE VALLEY 

The first thing I noticed in the little valley after we 
hid our combat wagons behind some bushes, was a 
nirinber of German prisoners. There were very few 
young faces among the prisoners ; most of them were 
old, war- weary and war-sick. Some really seemed 
too old to fight and I cannot understand how they 
endured the hardships of war. Most of them were 
smiling. I noticed particularly one old man smoking 
a long curved pipe, looking as though he had borne 
and suffered about all he could, yet he seemed to 
have a contented look, probably because he now felt 
that after four years of war which he had at last 
withstood he Avould get back to his home some day 
"somewhere in German J^" The prisoners were not 
kept at brigade headquarters very long but were sent 
on to the rear and I watched them as they marched 
away down the road. A few shells were dropping in 
the fields nearby and I know some of them were 
thinking that their own artillery might kill them just 
as they were about to escape from four long years of 
war. In a few minutes a German plane circled over 
us rather low and one of our men began firing on the 
plane with a German machine gun that had been cap- 
tured. 

Captain Tillman ordered me to issue our men extra 



150 WAR MEMORIES 

ammunition. I established an ammunition pile and 
sat on it and issued the ammunition as the men would 
come up. Then the German shells began to burst 
around us. TTieir artillery would mix in a German 
77 with an Austrian 88. The Austrian 88 would not 
whistle until it was just about to burst but the 
whistling 77 could be heard a long time while it was 
coming over. 

I saw a shell hit in a squad of men about fifteen 
yards from me, just across the ditch, and I heard a 
few groans; I saw our stretcher bearers immediately 
run and get the wounded and bring them to the first 
aid station near me; I saw our doctors dress the 
wounds; I saw a first aid man spread a blanket over 
one who had gone to a better world — these things I 
saw while I issued extra ammunition to the men while 
the German artiller\^ was peppering the little valley 
with shells. That isn't all I saw. I saw Lieutenant 
Barker, our Red Cross man, giving cigarettes and 
chocolate to the wounded as they came walking back 
from the fighting a little way ahead of us and to those 
that were being wounded around and near us. He 
had a leather satchel slung over his shoulders filled 
with cigarettes and chocolate. He was the busiest 
man I saw. He utterly disregarded enemy fire and 
his own safety at all times to do his duty. 

When I finished issuing the ammunition it was 



WAR MEMORIES 151 



about three o'clock in the afternoon (Monday.) I 
had not closed my eyes in sleep since Saturday night, 
nor had I eaten anything since supper the night be- 
fore. I was on the roads all night the previous night, 
as you have just read, and I had seen many horrors 
of war. While sitting on the ammunition pile, shells 
dropped all around me. 

When I had issued ammunition to the last man I 
started up a little path and passed Lieutenant Barker. 
I told him I was awfully tired and terribly hungiy. 
He said that he had frequently noticed me as I was 
sitting on the ammunition pile while the shells were 
bursting nearby and he had plenty of chocolate and 
wanted me to take a piece. I did. I had not slept or 
had anything to eat in a long time and had been 
under a terriffic shell fire and a terrible strain, ex- 
pecting death at any moment. How hungry, weak 
and tired I was, and that chocolate tasted so good ! 
But that isn 't all ; it probabl}^ saved my life. As I 
stood there eating the chocolate and talking to Lieu- 
tenant Barker, a shell burst squarely in the path up 
which I had started walking. I would have been 
just about where it hit when it burst if I had not 
stopped and asked for the chocolate. 

Then a boy came up, w^ho had been shot through 
the wrist, and said: ''I got the man that shot me.*^ 
Mr. Barker put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it 



152 W A R MEMORIES 



for liim, as the drops of blood from the boy's wrist 
stained the soil of Prance. 

Then a shell hit several yards away, a piece of the 
shell cutting a deep gash in a horse's leg. 

After I got the chocolate there was more shelling 
than ever. I ran behind a tank that had been hit and 
was out of commission. I stayed behind this tank 
a while, then I went into the gully w^here Acting Ma- 
jor J. M. Tillman, Lieutenant Joe Wood, most of our 
battalion runners, and others were. I remember there 
were some roots near me and I pushed m.y head up 
under them as far as I could. A shell hit just out- 
side the gully and threw dirt in on us. The dirt 
and grit made a tinkling noise as it fell on our steel 
helmets. This made us cling closer to the side and 
bottom of the gully. About that time a runner re- 
ported to LieutenaDt Wood. We had relay runners 
stationed up the road so as to send messages back and 
forth. Two of our runners were stationed together 
on the roadside. 

''Did you deliver the message?" asked Lieutenant 
Wood. 

''No, sir," answered the runner. 

"Why not?" 

The runner swallowed a big lump in his throat and 
said, "A shell hit where they were and both were 
dead when I got to them." 



WAR MEMORIES 153 



There were many songs written and manj^ speeches 
made about the boys rushing into the fight smiling, 
joking and laughing, and sometimes this was true, 
but when the shells were bursting around us as we 
hugged the bottom of that little gully, I looked around 
and there were stern and serious looks on the faces 
I saw. 

After the shelling 1 Avent over to one of the elephant 
backs which was being used for a first aid station, 
and there I heard a familiar voice of one who seemed 
to be suffering. It was Lieutenant Walter A. Little 
of Forsyth, Ga. I asked him if he was hurt much. 
He raised his head and looked at me to see who I was 
and said, ''Hello, Holden. Well, they got me.'' You 
can better imagine than I can describe the feeling I 
had and choked back as I looked at him for the last 
time and when he said, ''Well, they got me." He 
said something else, but I have forgotten the exact 
words he used. A piece of shrapnel had buried itself 
in his back. He, Lieutenant Samuel Jamerson and 
Lieutenant Wm. K. Merritt were wounded while 
bringing some prisoners down the nearby ro?)d. Lieu- 
tenant Jamerson told me later that he could see the 
German artillery and machine gunners shooting point 
blank at them from a nearby hill. He said when he 
was hit he fell in a ditch and that a number of the 
prisoners were killed and wounded and that one pris- 



154 WAR MEMORIES 



oner was cut in two. The wounded prisoners, he said, 
came over in the ditch with him. 

Lieutenant Little died a few days later in Base 
Hospital No. 49 at Beauns, France, just two bods 
from where Lieutenant Ernest HoUingsworth, a 
friend and fellow townsman oP mine, was recovering 
from a machine gun wound he received while serving 
with the 38th Infantry, the outfit that helped cheek 
the last drive the Germans attempted on Paris. 

When T returned home Earnest told me what a 
brave fight for life Lieutenant Little made. It was in 
this haspital and about the same time Little died that 
Lieutenant Frank Carter, of Atlanta, Ga., after spill- 
ing his blood for his country in the Argonne For- 
est, gave up more blood for a wounded soldier, which 
proved to be a greater danger to Carter's life than 
the German bullet that went through his right 
shoulder. 

I went back to the little gully. It was about dark 
then. Captain Tillman had just received orders to 
move his battalion further up. He started out with 
his men and said to me: "Go back, Holden, and 
bring us some ammunition and food." 

Just before I left, Lieutenant Lyons Joel asked me 
to keep his trench coat. From the way he told me 
good-bye, he seemed to think he would never get 
home. I remember how lonesome I felt when I was 



WAR MEMORIES 155 

transferred to tlie 2nd Battalion, 328th Infantry. 
They had trained together many months ; they seemed 
like one big family ; and at first I felt like a stranger 
among them. But I didn't feel that way long, be- 
cause in my company was Lieutenant Lj'oils Joel 
of Atlanta, Ga. We were in college together. It 
Wcis not long before, by his courteous treatment, I 
felt a part of the 2nd Battalion. Lieutenant Joel and 
I were together so often while in France. His men 
fairly worshipped him. He never lost an oppor- 
tunity to serve his platoon and when arriving at a 
new area, he never thought of a place to sleep for him- 
self until his platoon had been provided for. No 
one talked more about the home folks than he did. 
Volunteering when he was below the draft age, he 
answered his country's call — brave, loyal and faith- 
ful, he died like a hero. A few days after he threw 
his coat to me to hold on October 14th, he received a 
wound that proved fatal. You may remember now in 
the first of the book I told of Joel's mother and 
father following him to Camp Upton to say a last 
good-bye to their only son. I am so glad now that they 
did. If he had lingered a little longer in the hospital 
in France after he was wounded he would have vseen 
his father and mother once more, because they had 
secured passports to go over before they heard the 
news of his death. 



156 WAR MEMORIES 

Joel was one of those whose people, as a race, have 
no home country; but Jews fought with every coun- 
try in the World War. Over 600 American Jews 
were cited for braverjr in action and it is thrilling to 
read the citations of 'Sergeant Sidney G. Gumpertz; 
Sergeant Benjamin Kaufman and William Sawelson 
who were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. 

ON THE ROADS AGAIN 

About dark I got my men together and started 
back with our wagons to get more ammunition and 
food. The road was not so crowded and jammed as 
it was the night before. Shelling slowed our pro- 
gress for the first mile. 

We arrived at the supply company after midnight, 
cold, tired and liungry. We unhitched our horses, 
fed them, and got a cup of coffee and something to 
eat. Then I went to the supply company's tent and 
slept for a few hours on Lieutenant Little's cot. As 
tired as I was it was some time before I could go to 
sleep. In my thoughts, I had before me a picture of 
Little as ho lay fatally wounded in the dressing sta- 
tion that afternoon. 

Early the next morning we filled our wagons with 
ammunition and hard bread, corned beef and jam, 
and started back to the front. Our front lines had ad- 



WAR MEMORIES 157 



vanced far enough for us to make most of the way up 
ill day time. After we passed Varennes we began 
to hear the whistling of the shells again. We were on 
a road that followed up the valley, twisting and turn- 
ing alongside the Aire river. A few miles north of 
\'arennes was another road which ran into ours and 
on the hillside to our right we could see quite a bit 
of it. A column of infantry soldiers were marching 
on this road and all at once the shells came whistling 
overhead and dropping on and near it. The infantry 
column scattered to the fields on both sides of the 
road. Then I saw an ambulance making its way back 
from the front. It was running fast. Shells were 
bursting in front of and behind the car. Then I saw- 
an awful sight — a shell made a direct hit on the am- 
bulance. 

In a few minutes the shelling shifted to our road 
and the shells began to fall around us. One shell 
burst by one of my combat wagons and I went to see 
what damage it had done. Several pieces of shrap- 
nel hit the wagon. The driver, Bloomer, was a 
complete wreck. He was not touched by the shell, 
but had lost his mind entirely. He did not even 
remember his name. The bursting of the shell had 
made him a shell-shocked patient. I sent him back 
to the hospital and the rest of us went to nearby dug- 
outs. Claude L. Sheats of Kansas City was standing 



158 WAR MEMORIES 

near Bloomer when the shell exploded, but he was not 
harmed. 

After the shelling ceased near us we went on fur- 
ther until we came to cross roads. A military police- 
man threw up his right hand and stopped us. He 
would not let us go further as the road just ahead 
of us was being heavily shelled. I led the transport 
back a few hundred yards and then off of the road 
behind some camouflage and there we watched the 
shelling. 

Just ahead of us and to the right w^as a little valley 
where an outfit of artilleiy was stationed. I saw four 
or five German planes circle over this valley, then 
they flew back over their lines and I suppose signaled 
their artillery to shell the valley, as they stopped 
shelling the roads and began to shell this valley. In 
about twenty minutes the shelling ceased and the 
ambulances began bringing out the w^ounded. 

I have oftentimes seen thousands of madly cheer- 
ing football fans suddenly quieted. The game stops, 
''time out" is called. A player is hurt. The referee 
signals for the doctor. He rushes over the field with 
his medicine case. Thousands are w^atching the 
wounded player as he lies on the gridiron. Every- 
thing is dead still. Substitutes dart out from the side- 
lines and carry the player off the field. As they pass 



WAR MEMORIES 159 

the bleachers and grandstands the stillness is broken 
by handclaps of vSympathy — and the game goes on. 

I watched the wounded boys as they passed me that 
afternoon, some limping, some holding a torn or 
broken arm and others whose uniform was being 
stained in many places by their fresh wann blood, but 
there was no one to give them a cheer, nor did the 
game stop for ''time out." It could not be other- 
wise, for the game being played was WAR — differ- 
ent from all other contests — the game of war must 
go on. 

We started out on the road again and passed the 
little valley that we had just seen shelled. I saw^ 
many of our fine artillery horses lying dead on the 
ground. 

We soon reached the place where Captain Tillman 
had ordered us back for food. General Lindsey was 
out in the middle of the road and as I rode by him 
he stopped me and asked where I was going. I 
told him I had ammunition and food for my battalion. 
Then he said, ''They are shelling the road just 
ahead. Pull your wagons in to the right and wait 
until dark. You are under enemy observation on the 
road. They are shelling just ahead." I turned in to 
the right and waited until dark and then started out 
again. 

I led my wagons on. Looking down just ahead of 



160 WAR MEMORIES 



my slow- walking horse, I saw a kliaki clad form lying 
in the middle of the road. I stopped and directed 
the transport to go on the side of the road so as not 
to run over the body. As the wagons drove by, and 
as I sat there on my horse looking for the first time 
at a dead soldier boy of my country my thoughts trav- 
eled many miles back across the seas to a home. My 
thoughts were that someone was probably writing 
to him, maybe knitting something to keep him warm, 
or perhaps just sitting by the fireside thinking of 
the brave boy and his return. I shall never forget 
that moment. I kept looking at him ; with his face 
to the ground, his helmet still on his head, he ap- 
peared as though he had just stumbled and fallen. 
There he lay — an American soldier, representing the 
Stars and Stripes, whose followers love peace but can 
fight when it's time to fight with a courage that fears 
no danger. 

Wars seem to stand out in the pages of history as 
milestones in the paths of the lives of nations. Names 
of a few Generals, with important dates and bat- 
tles, are recorded and ever remembered, but the long 
roll of others who shed their blood and gave all are 
only thought of in the course of time, as a part of 
one big array. But I wish to say to the mother and 
father whose boy fell in battle on the soil of north- 
ern France or otherwise died in the service that I 



WAR MEMORIES 161 



know you have watched him year after year and 
planned and dreamed of his future and that you 
miss him; but remember that the Great Architect of 
the Universe has plans that we sometimes cannot 
understand. From their deeds future generations 
will reap the benefits. If all could accomplish in 
our short span of life what the American boys ac- 
complished, some of whom gave their all in the 
World War, then surely this old world would soon 
be a better place in which to live and die. But I 
must go on with my story. 

We moved on and I saw more Americans along the 
roadside whose tasks had been finished, mostly boys 
from my battalion and brigade headquarters' run- 
ners. Finally w^e arrived at a place where the wagons 
could go no further. The bridge across the Aire at 
La Forge had been shelled away. I called one of the 
boys who was with me and he and I crossed the river 
on the fallen pieces of the bridge and at times had to 
make some big jumps to make connection on the frag- 
ments and rubbish in the river. We w^alked on a few 
hundred yards and came to the town of Chatel Che- 
hery. 

It was very dark then, about eleven o'clock. Not 
a sound did we hear nor a soul did we see as we walk- 
ed up a side street into the main part of the village. 
Finally we heard someone walking. He was about 



162 WAR MEMORIES 

fifty yards in front of us. I decided to follow him. 
We followed him a little way, then watched him go 
hiio a house. We came to the house and everything was 
dark, but we could hear voices. There was a blanket 
hanging in the hallway. We passed this blanket and 
then saw a faint light down some steep steps. We 
went down these steps and then turned to the left 
and \vent down another flight of steps i^ml walked 
inside a large cellar. The cellar was full of our 
wounded boys. It was our regimental dressing sta- 
tion. Lieutenant Emerson grabbed my hand as if he 
was mighty glad to see nie. He said he had been 
thinking about me that night, and wondered if I 
was still living. He was our battalion dentist, but 
was helping Captain Davis Goldstein and our other 
doctors in their first aid work. Over in the corner 
was Lieutenant Albert G. Teague from Birmingham, 
Ala. He had been badly gassed — he looked ''all in.'' 
Lying on the floor was a wounded German asleep ; his 
wounds had just been dressed. Our doctors were 
husy dressing the wounds of many others. 

I told them I had food and ammunition that I was 
carrjang to our front lines and a,sked them how far 
they had advanced. They told me that regimental 
headquarters was in the northern edge of the village 
and that I could get the information there. We left 
the infirmary and started our search for regimental 



WAR MEMORIES 163 



headquarters. While walking through the village we 
met several boys coming toward us. I asked them 
where the headquarters was located. They told us 
to go up past the village church, turn to the left and 
we would find it in the last house on the left hand 
side of the street. 

When we arrived at headc^uarters, I met Lieuten- 
ant William T. Swanson of Savannah, Ga., also going 
in to see Colonel Wether ill. He said he had just left 
hi.s platoon out on the hill and that many were shot to 
pieces and were calling him by name and asking him 
to do something for them. 

I went inside. Captain Tomasello of Bagdad, Fla., 
Regimental Operations Officer, was busy talking over 
a phone that the Signal Corps men had installed. 
Colonel AVetherill was sitting in a corner bent over 
a table, studying his map by the dim light of a flick- 
ering candle. I told Colonel Wetherill that my trans- 
port w'as at La Forge but the bridge was down and 
that we could not cross. He said I could not get fur- 
ther than Chatel Chehery anyway, as daylight would 
catch my wagons on the road under enemy observa- 
tion. He looked down at his map and looked up and 
said I could go back to Apremont and cross the river 
and come into Chatel Chehery on the left side of the 
river. 

''All right, sir," I said, and we started back to 



164 WAR MEMORIES 

La Forge. Going back to the wagons, I detected that 
the little river bottom was filled with gas. In crossing 
it I got some gas. We put on our gas masks but at 
times the way was so rough and the night so dark that 
we had to take oft' our masks occasionally ; especially 
when we crossed the river on the fallen rocks. 

When I got back to my transport, I told my men 
the route we had to take to get into Chatel Chehery 
and about that time Captain Cathings Therrel of 
Atlanta, Oa., from division headquarters, interrupted 
me and said that he was establishing a divisional am- 
munition and food dump there at La Forge, I told 
him Colonel Wetherill had just mapped out a way 
for me to get the food and ammunition into Chatel 
Chehery. Captain Therrel said that his orders were 
from divisional headquarters, and that he would take 
charge and establish the divisional dump. He told 
me to carry my men and horses back to the supply 
company. 

Captain Therrel had charge of our supply com- 
pany when we first went into the Toul sector and 
his efficient management was a source of much pride 
and admiration to General Lindsey. 

THE ROADS ONCE MORE 

Again we hit the trail of the shelled roads. It was 
about 2 :00 A. M. when we started back. It was cold. 



WAR MEMORIES 165 



raining, and very dark. When we came to the cross 
roads, I decided to take a nearer road to the supply 
company and as it happened was very unlucky in 
doing so because about three miles from there we met 
a French outfit going toward the front. Here we got 
into an awful jam again. I was so tired that I almost 
fell asleep on ray horse at times when we had to stop 
awhile because of the roads being blocked. Only 
once or twdce did I hear the French soldiers say any- 
thing as the rain-soaked blue columns tramped by. 
The newness of war with them had worn into a se- 
rious affair during the four years past. 

When we arrived at the supply company we un- 
hitched our horses and I Avent to the supply company 
tent. I found it filled with replacement officers who 
had just come up to fill the vacant files. I managed 
to squeeze in on the cold ground and slept for a few^ 
hours. 

About daybreak everyone left the tent but me. I 
tried to get up but could not. I had such a pain in 
my head and chest and was suffering so that I was 
unable to get up with the others. My chest felt as 
though needles were sticking in it when I tried to 
cough. After breakfast several came in and felt 
my head and said I had a high fever. Among them 
was Lieutenant Mack Hirshburg of Atlanta, Ga., who 
came into the tent just before he left again for the 



166 W A R MEMORIES 



front with his wagons. He was in charge of ammu- 
nition and food, wagons for his battalion as I was 
in charge of the one for our battalion. I told one of 
my drivers to take charge of our wagons. 

About 5:00 o'clock that afternoon Charles Good- 
reau, from Falls River, Mass., helped me over to a 
nearby tent hospital. 

T had to stop several times and rest before we 
reached the hospital. On our last stop I remember 
seeing a sight that I have seen many, many times 
since when I recall the war pictures that are stored 
away in memory's keeping. Just as I sat down by the 
roadside to rest I looked up and saw a German plane 
dive out of a clear sky towards one of our large 
observation balloons, and puncture it wdth bullets. 
The walls of the balloon closed in and a great cloud 
of black smoke gushed upward. Out from the little 
basket underneath jumped a small figure, the para- 
chute opened up and the observer floated safely down 
from his destroyed post. The German airman, ac- 
complishing his mission, ascended towards the left in 
a large semi-circle and headed back towards the Ger- 
man lines with the swiftness of an eagle. 

The tent hospital to which I went was located on 
the edge of where the town of Varennes used to be. 
Here a doctor examined me, took my temperature 
which registered 1031/^ and tagged me acute bron- 



WAR MEMORIES 167 



chitis. I begged him not to send me back to the rear 
but my pleadings did no good. Then I insisted that 
I would not take a wounded man's place in the am- 
bulance. 

I lay down inside the tent. Ambulances and trucks 
would come up to get the w^ounded and sick but I 
waited for about an hour and a half before I would 
let them put me in a truck. Yet I wished I had been 
wounded because most of them were only slightly 
wounded and were not suffering much; they were 
laughing and joking. 

Goodreau was the orderly for Lieutenant iSmart 
(our Chaplain) and myself, but I had been using 
him as a driver on the wagon of the boy, (Bloomer), 
I lost by shell shock. I told Goodreau that he had 
done all he could for me and to go back to the 
Chaplain and help him bury the dead as he probably 
needed him now. His eyes filled with tears as he 
told me good-bye. 

After he left I seemed to have gotten worse. A 
few shells dropped near the tent and I thought we 
were in for a shelling but only a few hit near us. 

Just outside the tent a man began vsinging ''Mother 
MdCrea. ' ' I was already thinking of my mother be- 
fore he began singing because I thought I was dying, 
and you know whom we want by our side when we 
feel that we are about to leave this world. And she 



168 WAR MEMORIES 

no doubt was thinking and praying for me, because 
as Frank L. Stanton wrote : 

*^ There's a woman a-dreaming when shadows fall 

drear — 
Dreams of a toy Over There; 
A7id there's light in the dream, and that Light is 

a prayer 
Of Love for a hoy Over There. 
And the dream and the prayer find their way o'er 

the foam." 

Very few ever have the experience of feeling that 
they are dying and live to tell it. Many are cut off 
from this world in a second's time and are never 
conscious of the fact that they are leaving. 

I know now how the boys felt so far away from 
home who were conscious before they died and felt 
that they were dying. 

About 8 :00 o'clock that night I was put in a truck 
and carried to a field hospital further back of the 
lines. Here I took off my clothes and shoes which 
were still wet from the rains of the night before and 
I slept till morning on a cot near the stove. 

The next morning after taking a lot of medicine, 
I was taken out with a truck load of wounded and 
sick to a station where a French hospital train was 
waiting to take us to Langres. I was put in a lower 
bed on this train. The boy above me had to lie 



W A R M EMORIES 



on his face as he had a bad wound in his back. We 
rode all night. The next morning when we arrived 
ambulances were waiting for us at the station and 
about 10:00 o'clock I was lying between white sheets 
in a ward in Base Hospital 53. 

THE LAST SHOTS 

I wanted to go back to the front and everj'^ day I 
would ask the nurse and doctors to let me go back to 
my division but they refused, because the thermom- 
eter showed I had fever. In about a week the fever 
lei't me and on October 22]k], I left the liospital wdth 
orders to report to Is-sur-Tille Avhere I Avould get my 
traveling orders. Here I spent the night in a Red 
Cross Hotel. It was a cold, windy night. After sup- 
per I went into the parlor and sat in a big soft rock- 
ing chair in front of a glowing fire. An American 
girl was playing the piano and two were standing 
by her, singing. After a bit they sang my favorite 
song, ''The Sunshine of Your Smile." We all had 
some one dear to us back in the States that we often 
thought about. I saw a pen and ink on the table and 
in one of my sentimental moods I wrote her a long 
letter. But I am dreaming now, so will pinch my- 
self and go on with my story. 

I was ordered to the First Army Replacement De- 
pot which was stationed south of Nancy. Wlien I re- 



170 W A R M E iM OKIES 

ported the Depot was moving into the southern edge 
of the Argonne Forest, and I moved up with them. 
Captain I. Kimball of Auburn, Alabama, was in 
charge of the Medical Department of the Depot. He 
sa"w that I had gotten out of the hospital too soon 
and w^as still very weak. I could not walk a hun- 
dred yards without having to stop and rest, so Cap- 
tain Kimball had me assigned to the Replacement 
Depot until I could get stronger. The Depot was 
attached to the 40th Division. After we entered the 
Argonne, I tried to get transferred back to the 82nd 
Division but was told that it would take a G. H. Q. 
order to transfer me from one division to another. 
I did get back as far as the southern part of the 
Argonne. My division had been relieved then and 
was stationed nearby. Many of the boys of my old 
battalion told me how^ thin, w^eak and bad I looked. 

"While here in the edge of the Argonne Forest, I 
heard the last great artillery barrage on the morning 
of November 11th, that ended the World War. 
Promptly at 11:00 o'clock that morning the war 
noise of four years was hushed into sweet silence of 
peace. Tt was so hard for us to realize the end had 
come. It all seemed like a dream. 

Hot guns began to cool. The last bullet had 
pierced its object ; the last shell had wrought its 
havoc; the last bombing plane had haunted its prey. 



WAR MEMORIES 171 

Thus the curtain fell, bringing to a close the greatest 
catastrophe of all time. 

That last morning of the fight many of our boys 
were killed during the fierce exchange of artillery fire 
and that calm afternoon buried by chaplains and 
comrades undisturbed by the noises of war. 

I wonder if humanity will ever have to bear again 
the sorrows of another big war. The loss of life in 
the World War was appalling; the number of killed 
and wounded ran into the millions; and the number 
of heart-aches into billions. The permanent waste 
of property is too enormous to calculate and the 
debts piled upon nations make figures that are stag- 
gering. The terrible after effects are not only still 
seen but will be seen for many, many years. What 
would be the grand totals that would flow from 
another big war fought from under the waves and 
above the earth? 

Look at your innocent baby. Some day his soft 
and tender flesh may be ripped by an ugly piece of 
shrapnel shell; his little sparkling eyes may be 
blinded by some poisonous gas ; or his nerves may be 
shattered and torn by horrors of war that we are yet 
to hear about. But you say there will never be 
another war. Probably that is what mothers and 
fathers thought twenty and thirty years ago when 
60 liuiiiy of our war- crippled and blind were babes. 



172 WAR MEMORIES 

Let US do what we can to prevent wars. Let's 
liave some kind of world court, call it what you will. 
It will lessen if not prevent future wars. As it would 
be an experiment and its operations would be so 
varied and of such magnitude its powers should be 
limited at first, and enlarged as might be justified 
by experience. 

Something must be done with the nations that are 
teeming over with millions. They must expand. 
Where is this overliow^ going'!' However mueii they 
wish to inhabit American soil we do not want indis- 
criminate immigration. Let the court select a coun- 
try for the overflow, a country that will best satisfy 
all concerned. This will help to remove one cause 
of vv^ar. This court could also in some systematic 
way relieve famine, a great rival of war in producing 
suffering and taking life. 

What I have written may be trite and common- 
place and indeed out of place and serve no purpose 
except to make me feel better for having said some- 
thin o; about prevention or lessening of war, the hor- 
rible and horrifying effects of which I have seen and 
felt. 

From the organization of soldiers of the World 
War in this and other countries may come a good sub- 
stitute for a world court. Out of the war was born 
the American Legion, destined to be one of the great- 



WAR MEMORIES 173 

est non-political organizations in the United States. 
The soldiers of the World AVar in this country have 
associated themselves together for ''God and Coun- 
try" and I feel sure that we will have done more 
good than the World War did harm after we have 
worked for half a century and when we are gone our 
children will take up and carry on the good work for 
America. 

During the State Convention of the American 
Legion held at Columbus, Georgia, July 4th, 5th 
and 6th, 1921, one of the prominent speakers said to 
us in a speech before the convention : 

"As a military man I abhor war and I believe I 
state only what is absolute truth when I say that no 
class of men realize the horrors of armed conflict 
more vividly than the so-called 'professional sol- 
diers. ' 

We have not only suffered the hardships and ex- 
perienced the dangers of battle but many of us have 
had our homes forever darkened through the loss of 
our sons during the war. The only son of the late 
Chief of Staff, General March, went down in an air- 
ship ; the only son of General Cameron, at one time 
in command of Camp Gordon, was killed in France; 
and the only son of Colonel Symmonds, now Chief 
of Staff of the Fourth Corps area, in Atlanta, died 
of wounds received in action. My own son fell while 
personally operating a German machine gun which 
he, with a small detachment in advance of the re- 
mainder of his company, had just captured from the 



174 WAR MEMORIES 

enemy. We are, gentlemen, but human being.s. Is 
it probable that after such experiences we could ad- 
vocate war? On the contrary, we are advocating 
measures which history has shown will prevent war. ' ' 
This speaker was General P. C. Harris, at that time 
Adjutant General of our anny. 

ANXIOUS HEARTS 

The day after the Armistice was signed I read in 
the European edition of the New York Herald these 
glowing headlines, ''THE WAR IS WON." Then 
I read how whistles blew and bells pealed forth vic- 
tory throughout the world to millions of anxious 
hearts making them thankful and jubilant. I read 
how Paris celebrated as never before. But in the 
same edition that carried these good tidings was a 
column headed, "LATEST AMERICAN CASUAL- 
TIES." Two hundred and thirty-six names of offi- 
cers and men who were killed in action or who died of 
disease were listed with home addresses in every 
state in the Union. 

All the world was happy that peace had come, but 
w^ith it there were aching hearts. Man}^ had already 
learned that they would never again have their boys 
around the family fireside. Then, too, how many 
others were in doubt as to whether their boys sur- 
vived the last days of fighting? My parents were 
amons: those last mentioned. 



WAR MEMORIES 175 

My mother paraded and waved a flag in the happy 
throng that marched in Athens, Georgia, when the 
wires iBiashed ''Peace on Earth," and my father 
gazed on the parade from his office window with 
heart throbs of joy, but that night, what? Before 
they closed their eyes in sleep they wondered many 
times if I came through. 

The next day they looked for a cable from me, 
but not a word. The next surely a cable would come, 
they thought, but not a w^ord from me that day, nor 
the next, and not until seventeen days after Novem- 
ber 11th did they know that I was living. 

Soon afterw^ards my father received a letter from 
the United States Treasury Department notifying 
him that I died on November the 1st and requested 
him to fill out an enclosed form and make a certain 
affidavit to obtain settlement of my insurance policy. 
My father answered that there must be some mistake 
as he had received a cable from me the day before 
and I had put date of message in body of cable. In 
answer to this letter the Bureau of War Risk Insur- 
ance Office wrote : 

''You are advised that upon the receipt of your 
letter an investigation was made w^hich developed the 
fact that Frank B. Holden, 2nd Lieutenant of In- 
fantry, United 'States Army, who died on November 
1st or 2nd, was the son of Mr. H. Holden, Oakland, 
Maine. On account of the similarity of names the 



176 WAR MEMORIES 

form was sent to you in error, and it is hoped that it 
caused you no unnecessary anxiety. The prompt at- 
tention given to the matter by you and the informa- 
tion given this Bureau are very much appreciated. 
Yours truly, 
(Signed) H. C. HOULIHAN, 
Deputy Commissioner Compensation/' 

'Two years later my father received the following: 
'^H. M, Holden, 
Athens, Ga. 
My dear sir : 

How little I know that these lines will ever reach 
you. The enclosed were among the effects of my boy 
sent to us from Souilly hospital where he died No- 
vember 1st, 1918. My son's name was Lt. Frank 
B. Holden, thus the mistake. If the enclosed reaches 
you, I would be very glad to hear from you. 
Very sincerely, 
(Signed) MRS. J. H. HOLDEN." 

The ''enclosed" referred to in above letter was a 
cable sent to me from my father. It said, "All 
Well," and signed "H. M. Holden." I hope the 
other Frank Holden thought the initial "M" was a 
typographical error and that he died feeling all at 
home were well as I would have wanted to have felt 
if I had died over there. 

I had no idea there was another boy in the army 
who had the same name, rank and branch of service 
that I had. One of the initials "H' in the name of 



WAR MEMORIES 177 



his father was one of the initials in the name of my 
father. And getting our names confused indicates 
there must have been many errors, for the Bureau 
of War Risk Insurance say they have in their files 
53,200 members of the Johnston family (Johnston, 
Johnston 'h, Jonson, etc.) They have records of 
2,138 John Johnstons and 2,032 who answer to the 
name of William Johnston. Of course you know the 
names that come next : 51,900 Smiths, 48,000 Browns 
and 47,000 Williams. The Jones, Andersons and 
Walkers are next in line. So mistakes were inevi- 
table; but I never thought that I would ever read 
of my death. 

AFTER THE STORM 

Like rivers that swell after the storm, the stream 
of war casualties swell long after the flashing can- 
nons have thundered forth their last rain of deadly 
shells. More than three years have passed since the 
World War closed and there are today over thirty 
thousand American ex-service men in hospitals, 
which is more than at any other time since the 
Armistice was signed. 

Captain Henry Brown, a college mate of mine, 
died from the effects of war after he returned from 
France, and now sleeps in peace in the cemetery of 
his boyhood home, Athens, Georgia, where the 



178 WAR MEMORIES 

smoothl}^ flowing Oconee winds through the calm 
city of the dead and where the birds sing in the 
water oaks above the marble slabs. Such a contrast 
from the horrors of war that took Henry's life, and 
to this quiet resting place his father and mother can 
go and retrospect and find sw^eet consolation. 

There is Lieutenant Robert R. Forrester of Atlanta, 
Ga. He and I for three years drilled together while 
attending the Georgia Military Academy at College 
Park, Georgia. Robert, while serving with the 327th 
Infantry, volunteered on a daylight raiding party 
against the enemy on September the 13th, 1918, and 
was severely wounded. He lived many months after 
returning and underwent untold suffering before he 
died. 

You know full well the story of Lieutenant Col- 
onel Charles W. Whittlesey of Pittsfield, Mas.s. On 
his chest was pinned the Congres-sional Medal of 
Honor, the highest military tribute this country can 
pay a soldier for bravery. But as the outside world 
read of this hero and of the medals awarded him, 
they knew not the heart that beat beneath these med- 
als; they knew not the shattered nerves that lay be- 
neath a flesh surface that shoAved no visible scars of 
battle; they knew^ not that the strain of war left a 
mental and mortal wound. No ! they knew^ not these 
things until Colonel Whittlesey's tragic death which 



WAR MEMORIES 179 

came three years after the Germans asked him while 
Commander of the ''Lost Battalion" in the Argonne 
to surrender, which he refused to do. We all know 
of this tragedy, because of the prominence of the 
hero, but there are many similar cases that go un- 
noticed. 

There are many others I could name. Every com- 
munity knows of them. They died for our country 
as did the thousands who were killed in action. And 
there are many others who will never get over the 
effects of the war. 

I ask your indulgence to mention another war 
casualty. He never wore a soldier's uniform, but 
when Congress declared war he was "the 'Commander- 
in-Chief of the anny and navy of the United States. 
During the days of readjustment and reconstruction 
our country is deprived of the services of our war 
time President, Woodrow Wilson. And during these 
trying days not only the States need Wilson, but 
the world needs his great heart and brain. Time 
proves all things and in the distant years I can see 
the long row of American school children memoriz- 
ing important dates and names of prominent figures 
and battles of the World War, and standing out 
above and beyond all others will be, in dates, ''No- 
vember 11th, 1918;" in names of battles, "Argonne;" 
and in the names of persons, "Woodrow Wilson." 



180 WAR MEMORIES 



As the years go by our people will read and study 
this man more and monuments to his memoiy will 
tower here and there throughout this land of ours. 
Not listed a casualty on the records of the War De- 
partment (though by special Act of Congress he 
should be), yet in the hearts of his fellow country- 
men his name is written alongside the names of other 
American soldiers wounded ''in action." 

A TRIP BACK 

A few days after the Armistice, I secured a mo- 
torcycle side car and rode in peace over the roads 
that I had traveled over in the dark without any 
lights. I saw many places where w^e were shelled 
and the little valley where at one time I thought 
"the next shell will get me." But the places had 
already changed. The shell holes had begun level- 
ing out. 

I rode into Chatel Chehery and went back of the 
church into the village church yard. Here I saw the 
graves of some of my dearest friends and saw where 
iive officers from my Regiment (328th) had been 
buried in a row. I stood before the grave of my old 
college pal, Lieutenant Carl Goldsmith of Atlanta, Ga. 
I know he must have died smiling. I never saw him 
when his bright face did not inspire all those around 
him. Major Buxton said when he saw Carl Gold- 



WAR MEMORIES 181 

smith's body on the morning of October 11th on a lit- 
tle slope beside the first houses in the town of Cor- 
nay that Carl lay full length on his stomach, but the 
left side of his face was resting on his left arm, his 
pistol gripped in his right hand thrust forward, and 
just back of him lay three or four of his men. Major 
Buxton said that Carl had the happiest and most 
peaceful expression he ever saw^ on a dead soldier. 
I went back through the valley that I walked 
through when I went into Chatel Chehery the night 
the bridge was down. In this little valley were many 
rows of crosses marking the graves of our men. How 
awfully sad and depressing was the sight of these 
crosses and graves of my comrades. The afternoon 
was cold and rainy and it was a long, lonesome ride 
for me back to my outfit. 

DAD'iS XMAS LETTER 

The follow^ing headlines appeared in the issue of 
''Stars and Stripes" the last of November, 1918: 

''LID OFF CENSORSHIP FOR FATHER'S 

LETTER 

"NEW RULING ANNOUNCED JUST IN TIME 

TO ALLOW FAMILY TO KNOW WHOLE 

STORY OF YOUR LIFE IN FRANCE" 



A part of my letter is as follow 



s: 



182 WAR 31 EMORIES 

'' France, November 24, 1918. 
Dear Papa: 

This is your Christmas letter. 

It is impossible for me to sit down and write you 
of the many times I have thought of you and of how^ 
I have missed you since I have been in France; so 
I am not going* to try to do the impossible but in- 
stead I am going to tell you many things that here- 
tofore the censor would not allow. I believe that 
a father's love and feeling for his son is just as 
deep as that of a mother's and I know of nothing 
that wil'l interest you more than for you to stop fig- 
uring and guessing where I am and where I have 
been and now hear the real facts." 

The above is the first paragraph of the long 
*' Father's Xraas Letter" that I wrote on a chilly 
November night thirteen days after the Armistice 
was signed. The rest of the letter tells in detail 
every little French village in which we w^ere billeted, 
where we first went into the trenches, and of the 
drivas we made. On my return home I learned that 
my mother, father, brother and sisters had worn out 
a map and spent many hours trjdng to figure out 
what part oi France I was in, especially during the 
drives. 

What a grand success ''Dad's Xmas Letter" 
proved to be! The Stars and Stripes said in its 
issue of December 6, 1918, that the homebound mail 
for the week prior to the one in which Father's Let- 



WAR MEMORIES 183 

ters were dispatched comprised 6,381,540 pieces and 
the homebound mail for the week in which these let- 
ters were sent Statesward numbered 8.632,000 pieces, 
an increase of 2,250,460 pieces. The postal authori- 
ties state that they were sure that at least 2,000,000 
Fathers' Letters left France, wliieli means that 
nearly every one in the A. E. F. vrjio could write or 
dictate a letter did so. 

But with the sunshine we always have the rain. 
In the above mentioned issue of the Stars and Stripes 
of December 6th, the following appeared: 

**But the prize letter of the day, the best of all 
in our opinion, and we have seen and heard of many, 
was written down at Saizeraise, France, by a man 
whose name we will naturally omit. This is the 
way his father's Christmas Victory Letter read: 

"My Father: Today throughout the Army sol- 
diers are writing to their fathers, so I am sending a 
word of devotion to mine. 

''I want fii-st to tell you that I felt your presence 
at my side through times of strife and hardship. 
Your character was an inspiration to me at every 
turn, and, though my following was but a poor emu- 
lation, the desire to be worthy was strong. 

The thought of you, your tenderness, your sym- 
pathetic nature, were constantly before me — and I 
could not forget. 

I need not tell you where I have been and what 
I have done — you have been with me every moment 



184 W A R M E M R 1 E 8 



and you already know. I was uplifted by the 
thought that you were by my side. 

"With just as much love as though you were still in 
the land of the living, I am, 

YOUR DEVOTED SON." 

Then there was the ''Vanished Hand." 
Some of the fathers of these boys received letters 
from the pals of their departed sons who gave these 
fathers in many cases the first details of their brave 
boys' deeds. 

Thanks to the Stars and Stripes for the sugges- 
tion of "Dad's Xmas Letter." This is just one of the 
many good things this official organ of the A. E. F. 
did for us over there. I hardly see how we could 
have gotten along without this publication. It cheer- 
ed us with jokes, songs and poetry. It told of new 
leave areas that were being opened. It told us how 
Lilj.Mty Loan drives back home were gohig ''over the 
top." During the dark month of July, 1918, when 
the Germans were only forty miles from Paris, it 
told us that we were landing on the average of ten 
thousand American soldiers per day in France. In 
short, the Stars and Stripes was the next best thing 
tc, ;::-:f,uv; '"[t.-rs from home. It cheered the army 
in the mud and blood of the trenches and it encour- 
aged the men in the Service of Supplj^ — the army 
behind the army. 



WAR MEMORIES 185 



MY BEST TRIP IN FRANCE 

The morning of November 27th, Lieutenant Chas. 
T. Gilden, Jr., a dentist from Philadelphia and 
I wanted to see Verdun and the awful sights 
around the city. We started out walking on the road 
toward Verdun and we soon '"flagged" a truck. 
The driver said he was carrying some supplies to 
the army of occupation, so we decided to go on as 
far as Luxemburg with him and then catch another 
truck back. We passed through the heart of the 
historic city of Verdun. We rode through the 
narrow streets lined by three and four story build- 
ings for blocks and blocks. All of the buildings I 
saw either had great shell holes in them or were 
partly knocked down or entirely wrecked. 

Beyond Verdun we passed through a long stretch 
of shell-ploughed country that looked like a perfect 
hell on earth. On and on we rode until we reached 
concrete dugouts, a perfect trench system and strings 
of camouflage stretched across the top of the road so 
as to conceal any movements on it from our observa- 
tion balloons. Many large trees along the road were 
mined so that when the mines were set off the trees 
would fall across the road and block a pursuit. 

We rode through many deserted towns. In one 
through which we pas.sed I saw a theater in the cen- 



186 WAR MEMORIES 



ter of the town where the German soldiers were af- 
forded amusements. On the eastern end of the town 
was a large prison camp. 

Just about dark we came to the city of Longwy 
and here we found many French inhabitants. The 
Oermans had passed through the town a few days 
before on their evacuation. We spent the night in 
Longwy and started out early the next morning for 
Luxemburg. When we got into the country of Lux- 
emburg, I could see a difference. The soil had been 
tilled and the yards around the farm houses kept 
clean ; the people looked well and dressed well and 
did not seem to have been hard pressed by the war — 
no shell holes in the fields, no ruined villages — every- 
thing looked prosperous and it made me forget I was 
so near poor Belgium and France. 

We arrived in the city of Luxemburg about noon. 
Here was the capital of a little country which had 
been surrounded by nations at war. The street cars 
and streets were crowded. The show windows were 
decorated wath Christmas goods, 

I went into a store to buy some souvenirs to bring 
back with me. The people there speak French, Flem- 
ish and German and many other languages. A 
pretty little girl came up to wait on me and after 
much difficulty I managed to tell her in a few broken 
French w^ords what I wanted. When I finished she 



WAR MEMORIES 187 



laughed (not smiled) at me and said, "Wliat do you 
wish, I speak English a little bit?" Well, her Eng- 
lish was a long way better than my French so we 
conversed thereafter in English. 

That night we were given passes to one oi the 
leading social clubs of the city. All of the Americans 
were treated royally by the inhabitants. Some day I 
want to go back to that little country of Luxemburg. 

We found a good place to sleep in a nice residence 
that night. Early the next morning we walked out 
the street that led back into France towards our 
camp. We had not gone far before a truck came and 
we boarded it. The truck turned off from our road 
at Verdun. We waited a little while and then waved 
down another truck. We arrived at camp a little 
after dark. I think I enjoyed this trip more than 
any trip I made during my stay oversea.s. 

The next day was Thanksgiving Day. After din- 
ner I went to my little hut and built a fire in the 
stove. In a little while the room was warm and I 
began a long letter home telling about my trip to 
Verdun and Luxemburg. 

I have this letter before me now as I write these 
lines and the last page reads: 

''We had a good dinner. We had chicken instead 
of turkey. Also had some olives, the first I have 
had since I left the Slates. Tt is raining now, a cold 



188 WAR MEMORIES 



winter rain, but I am comfortably fixed. I have 
a good fire in my stove and have plenty of wood in 
my wood box. 

I have more to be thankful for as each Thanks- 
giving Day rolls by, but I have more to be thankful 
for this Thanksgiving than all the rest put together. 

Just think, next Thanksgiving, if nothing happens, 
I'll be at home! Oh! how happy I'll be to be back 
home again. I love home, but now I love it and 
can appreciate it more than ever before. 

Continue to keep cheerful, because that great day 
isn't so far away now. With all my love." 

The last of November our Replacement Depot was 
disbanded and most of us were assigned to the va- 
rious regiments of the 40th Division. I was assigned 
to the 157th Infantry (40th Division) and stayed 
with this res'iment until we landed in New York. 



to-" 



CHRISTMAS EVE SUPPER 

The 157th Infantry was billeted in many towns 
before we received orders to entrain for the port of 
embarkation. I will relate my experiences in but 
two of these towns — ^Cheminon and Pont-de-la-May 
(a suburb of Bordeaux.) 

We stayed in the little town of Cheminon longer 
than any other place and we were there during Christ- 
mas. One of the things that I will always remem- 
ber was the Christmas Eve supper that Sergeant 



WAR MEMORIES 



189 



Brinson Wallace of Millen, Ga, and I enjoyed to- 
gether. 

I had a room in a French home. A little before 
dark we got a loaf of bread from the company mess 
sergeant and bought from a store some French sar- 
dines and nuts, and went to our room. The red hot 
coals in the fire were just right and we sharpened a 
couple of sticks and toasted some bread, then opened 
the sardines, pulled an old box up near the fire and 
spread our Christmas Eve supper on it. 

While eating, we talked of the good times we were 
going to have when we returned home We were 
just going to eat, sleep, and have a good time. We 
thought of the many Christmases that we had en- 
joyed, the presents we received and the bells and 
holly decorations. But we did not have to have 
these things then to make us happy; just the thought 
of the war being over and that we would soon enjoy 
again the good old times made us feel mighty happy. 
As we were enjoying our feast our conversation 
finally drifted to the girls back home. 

Just across the hall from us that night was a merry 
little group. I knocked on the door to return the 
dishes we had borrowed and when I walked in the 
room I saw a glorious picture. There sat the father 
wdth his wife and three children. Four long years 
of fighting — four Christmases in succession absent — 



190 M^ A R M E M OKIES 



and now he wa.s back with them. His return was the 
grandest present the wife could have received and 
all the toys in the world could not have made the 
children any happier. Then I returned to my room 
and wrote the following letter to my mother: 

''France, December 24, 1918. 
Dearest Mama : 

I have just finished supper. I bet you can't guess 
what I had. It was raining so I couldn't go out to 
supper, but stayed here in my room, and Brinson 
Waliace and 1 opened a can of French sardines 
and toa^sted some bread. Quite a difference from the 
Christmas Eve suppers I used to have, but I'm 
happy, and I'm enjoying sitting by the fire thinking 
of how I used to enjoy the "night before Christ- 
mas," a long time ago. So I've spent most of the 
day thinking of the times that used to be and mem- 
ories of those happy days have constantly been be- 
fore me all day, and next Christmas Eve probably 
I'll look back on how I spent this day, so what I've 
done today will soon be memories, too. 

I spent a part of the afternoon watching a French 
lady wash my clothes in a little branch that runs 
just back of the house. They move like a machine. 
"What amused me most was the way she w^ould beat 
the w^ater out of the clothes with a paddle. 

Today seemed long and lonesome until this after- 
noon wlien it bunst into sunshine, for I received four 
letters. 

Brinson Wallace is stavinof in the room with me 



WAR MEMORIES 191 



and sleeping on my bedding roll, and what do you 
reckon? He went out of doors for a second, and 
much to my surprise, he brought in a big snowball. 
He says the ground is covered with snow two inches 
deep. It's the first snow we've had. Well, Mama, 
don't worry abont me. Just think how glad I'll be 
to see the home folks. We'll be here in Cheminon 
until the 15th of January, and then make another 
move tow^ard home. Have not seen Linton Howard, 
Frank Miller or Fleetwood Lanier. A heartful of 
love. FRANK." 

Christinas morning I wrote the following home: 
"France, Christmas morning, 

December 25, 1918. 

It is nearly 11:00 o'clock. I have just come back 
from services that our Regimental Chaplain held in 
Company "I's" barracks. He gave a mighty good 
talk. He used to be Assistant Attorney General of 
Iowa, and also quite a campaign lecturer for Presi- 
dent Roosevelt. 

After all, today isn't so blue as I thought it w^ould 
be. The mail I received yesterday certainly was a 
''life saver." I'm enjoying the day, thinking of my 
many blessings; of how much I have to be thankful 
for. I have a "home coming" to look forward to. 
So many will be left over here. So many of the boys 
that you knew who were in college with me are 
buried over here now and many are w^ounded and 
many had such narrow escapes. I was with these 
boys in the class room, I used to loaf with them be- 
tween classes underneath the large oaks on the cam- 
pus during ihe lazy Spring months when our 



192 W A R M E M OKIES 

thoughts were of Commencement time and the sum- 
mer vacation more than books and they are the same 
boys that have often been out home, and now how 
hard it is for me to realize that we won't see some 
of them any more. Calvin George, from Madison, 
Ga., who was in my law class, was killed July 28. He 
was with the 38th Infantr^^ (3rd Division) and they 
saw terrific fighting even before our division went 
into the Toul Sector. Poor George Harrison! Think 
how he used to throw the old baseball to me at third 
base, like a rifle bullet ! A one pounder hit his right 
arm and the University's star second baseman of 
1912 to 1916 will never throw another ball with that 
arm. 

Clark Howell, Jr., who is a Major now, had some 
narrow escapes. I heard he had his helmet knocked 
off by a piece of shrapnel during the Argonne fight. 
Haven't seen Julian Erwin, Joe Lumpkin, Charlie 
Martin nor Fred Reid, but have seen lots of boys 
that I did not know were over here. Wish I could 
find Watson White and Cranston Williams. 

You can imagine our losses when I tell you I saw" 
the graves of five of our officers from the 328th In- 
fantry buried alongside each other. My platoon had 
fewer casualties than any other, I think, in the regi- 
ment. The Mexican that Lieutenant Kirby trans- 
ferred for one of my men was killed out of my 
platoon. 

At 4 :30 my company w^ill have a Christmas dinner. 
We bought la couple o-f Jturkeys and some other 
things out of the company funds. I'll write you 
about it tonight. Lots of love. 

FRANK. '^ 



WAR MEMORIES 193 



A LEAVE AT LAST, BUT— 

While we were in Cheminon, one of my many ap- 
plications for a leave actually came back from di- 
vision headquarters approved. 

When we were on the British front in the Spring 
we had our trunks stored and later they were sent to 
Gievres, a little town in the middle of France. I put 
in for a leave to go down to Gievres to get my trunk 
which my mother spent an entire day at Camp Gor- 
don in ''packing" and which I had not seen but 
once since it left the States. The leave was ap- 
proved December 28th and read as follows: 

''Headquarters 40th Division, 

December 28, 1918. 

Special Orders, 

No. 125. (Extract.) 

Second Lieutenant Frank A. Holden, 157th In- 
fantrv, is authorized to proceed to Gievres for the 
purpose of locating personal baggage. This leave 
will not exceed two days. He will not remain m 
Paris longer than is necessary to make the first tram 
connections. 

By command of Major Gen. 'Strong. 

F. H. Farnum, 
Act'g. Chief of Staff." 

I caught the first train for Paris and from there 
caught a local; rode almost all day; located my 



194 WAR MEMORIES 



trunk at Gievres; secured a Ford from the Quarter- 
master; rode to a nearby town and there boarded a 
crowded train back to Paris, standing up nearly all 
the way. 

When I arrived in Paris I was almost exhausted. 
I saw some officer from our outfit who Avere going on 
a wreck's leave; hence I knew w^e would not move 
soon. I wanted to see Paris again and also buy some 
souvenirs. Here let me explain the rules governing 
American soldiers passing through Paris. When an 
American arrived at any of the various stations in 
Paris he had to register with the Military Police, who 
would stamp on his leave of absence the date and 
time of his arrival. We were allowed only twenty- 
four hours there, unless we had a specir.l leave to 
Paris. When w^e left the city an M. P. would look 
at our leave to see if we had overstayed our twenty- 
four hours. If we had, he would take our names and 
outfit and it would be reported to our Commanding 
Officer. 

Paris was a groat place to meet up with old friends. 
and while strolling down one of the principal ave- 
nues I spotted in the throngs that passed a familiar 
face. It was Lieutenant Lovick P. Lingo of Mil- 
ledgeville, Ga. I was particularly giad to see him for 
he was with the 3rd Battalion of my old regiment, 
and I had often wondered if he came through alive. 



WAR MEMORIES 195 



His face fairly beamed with happiness and his 
eyes sparkled with delight. He had every reiison to 
he jubilant. He was just out of the hospital where 
he was treated for gas and a wound received at Cor- 
nay on the 9th of October, and had just heard the 
grand news that he had been awarded the Distin- 
guished Service Cross, and on top of all that, he was 
in the city where pleasure and gaiety reigned supreme. 
And in this some city ol Covnay and on the same 
day that Lingo was wounded, my first cousin. Lieu- 
tenant W. M. AVeaver (327th Infantry) was wounded 
and captured. He and his men were in a house sur- 
rounded by Germans and after being ordered to 
surrender and while attempting to escape from the 
house Lieutenant Weaver was wounded himself and 
saw five of his men shot down. When he had gone 
about twenty feet from the house he was shot again 
in his side and when he fell a German ran to him 
and covering Lieutenant Weaver with his pistol car- 
ried him back a prisoner. I thought of my cousin as 
I was talking to Lieutenant Lingo. Weaver at the 
time was somewhere in Germany with a menu minus 
breakfast, with cabbage and carrots for dinner, and 
carrots and cabbage for supper. 
''How long will you be in Paris?" asked Lingo. 
''Just passing through," I said. "Wish my pass 
let me stay longer." 



196 WAR MEMORIES 



*'You know Ralph Bassett from Fort Valley, Ga., 
don't you?" 

''Sure; I was in college vrith him four years," I 
said. 

"Well, he is in charge of the A. M. P, here. He 
may extend your time in Paris." 

I lost no time then locating Ralph. I called on 
Lieutenant Bassett and walked over near his desk. 
A Colonel was asking for an extension of time; 
Ralph (a First Lieutenant) turned him down. 
When he saw me he told me to pull up a chair and we 
talked at length. 

We were old friends and classmates in college. 
After talking over old times I said: "Ralph, there 
are two favors I want to ask of you. First, I am out 
of money and I am in Paris for my last time. I 
want to buy a few souvenirs to carry back w^ith me." 
He said he would be glad to recommend me to the 
American Express Company. He gave me a letter 
asking that they cash a check for me up to any rea- 
sonable amount, then he put his official seal on the 
letter and said that I would have no trouble in get- 
ting the money, and I did not. 

Then Ralph asked what else I had on my mind. I 
told him that I had been in France nearly a year; 
had never had a leave granted me, except a day's 
pass to Nancy, and I wanted him to extend my leave 
so that I could stay in Paris a few days. 



WAR MEMORIES 197 

He said that he would be glad to do so and asked 
to see my leave order. When he read, *'He will not 
remain in Paris longer than is necessary to make 
first train connections," he was silent for a moment, 
and then said: "Frank, I can't extend your leave on 
that order; I can't override a Major General's order, 
but if you stay here a few days, I will help you all 
I can." I walked out of his ofrice feeling good. I 
saw Paris for a couple of days, enjoyed the real sight 
seeing that Paris affords, enjoyed the many fiaie 
dishes she boasts of, bought a lot of souvenirs and 
returned to my outfit. 

Everything rocked along just fine when I first got 
back to Cheminon. But wait. In about two weeks, 
one cold, rainy day, some one knocked at my door. 
It was an orderly from headquarters. He handed 
me a paper. I signed for it, then walked over by the 
fire to read it. I did not know whether I had been 
transferred or promoted. But it was neither. It was 
from headquarters of the 40th Division, asking me 
to explain by endorsement thereon, why I overstayed 
my leave in Paris. 

Well, I did not know what to do. I had learned 
that an army paper, especially an endorsement, 
ought to be brief and to the point. For once in my 
life I w^as going to vary from this rule. I wrote on 
the back a long answer, telling of the five recommen- 



198 WAR MEMORIES 



dations for my promotion never going through, how I 
tried to get back to my division, my long stay in 
France and never getting a leave while many who 
applied for leaves after having just landed in France 
received them back approved. I heard nothing more, 
so ''all's well that ends well." 

IN vSOUTHERN FRANCE 

Finally onr oreigiment received (orders to move. 
After a ride of two days and nights, packed and 
jammed in box cars, we arrived at Pont-de-la-May, 
a little suburb of Bordeaux. It was 10:00 o'clock at 
night when we reached the station and in a down- 
pour of rain the regiment had to march about four 
miles and locate their billets. I was mighty glad that 
some other Second Lieutenant this time had the job 
of billeting the regiment. 

But I caught a detail, as usual. I was left at the 
station to see that the regimental bag^-a<^c was car- 
ried over the next morning. An old lady who was 
station agent, had some bed rooms over the depot, 
and I paid her a few francs for a room. I was very 
tired, so I enjoyed a nice rest in one of those soft 
French beds. 

The next morning I saw the baggage safely to the 
proper places and began to look for the billeting of- 
ficer to get a room assigned to me. All of the rooms 
in the finest houses had been taken. It was cold and 



WAR MEMORIES 199 



rainy and I wanted to get located as soon as possi- 
ble. I had learned by this time, though very late, 
that the best way to get anything in the army was 
to go after it yourself, so I started out to find a room. 
•Seeing a fine chateau in the distance, I decided to ask 
for a room there. It was all walled in like most of 
the fine chateaux. I opened the big iron gate, walk- 
ed in and rang the door bell. The lady of the house 
and the maid came to the door. The lady refused at 
first to let me have a room, but after pleading with 
her for some time, she told me I could have a room 
on the third floor. 

Well, I felt then as if the Colonel had nothing on 
me, as my home was the finest chateau in the little 
suburb. I looked out of my window the next morn- 
ing and I saw a beautiful girl with large, brown eyes, 
plump build and a round, happy looking face. She 
was picking flowers in the garden. She reminded 
me so much of a real girl — you know what I mean — 
an American girl. 

Sunday afternoon I was invited to have tea wdth 
the family. I was very happily surprised Vv^hen I 
saw the beautiful girl I had seen from the window 
in the sitting room that afternoon, and more so 
when Mrs. Du Sault introduced her as her daughter. 
Madeline was her name. She could speak a little 
English but not so well as her mother and older 



200 WAR MEMORIES 

brother. The little boy, about six years old, could 
say ''hello" and "good-bye," and often used the 
words at the wrong time. A few minutes after I 
met the familj^ some friends from Bordeaux came, 
four good-looking young mademoiselles. You can 
imagine what a glorious time I had in a room full of 
good looking girls — sometimes a rare treat even back 
in the New World. 

They asked me how far I lived from New York. 
I was very happy when I found my home town (Ath- 
ens, Ga.) in the little boy's geography. They seemed 
to think that all Americans lived in or around New 
York City. 

Knowing how the French boys like American 
cigarettes, I bought a box for Jean, the older brother, 
and after refreshments were served I gave him the 
box of cigarettes. He, being very polite, passed them 
first to the girls, each taking one. Mrs. Du Sault 
joined them in their smoking. When the party was 
over and I told them all good-bye, Madeline followed 
me to the hall door. I asked her if she would go with 
me to a picture show in Bordeaux the next afternoon. 
"Yes," she said, "but mother will have to go Avith 
us." 

When I returned to my room, I thought for a long 
time. I could not put those two things together — a 
young girl 19 could not go out with a boy unless her 



WAR MEMORIES 201 

mother went with her, but could sit up in her home 
with the boys and smoke cigarettes. The next day 
the girl and I w^ent to Bordeaux and her mother went 
with us. They helped me select many souvenirs. 

Bordeaux did not seem to belong to a country that 
had been at war. It was a lively city with a pop- 
ulation at that time of about 150,000. The French 
here sounded different from that spoken by the peo- 
ple in northern France. I went into Bordeaux nearly 
every day. 

On my last trip into the city I met my old college 
mate. Lieutenant Hill Freeman of Newnan, Ga., and 
he and I looked around the city searching for souve- 
nirs to carry home. We talked a great deal about 
our homes down in Georgia. 

Home was uppermost in our minds. Many times 
during the day while at Bordeaux a picture of home 
came before my eyes, and oftentimes at night I lay 
awake thinking of home and I am sure there were 
many others thinking of their homes, too, whether it 
was a "Little Gray Home in the West," or a palace 
on Fifth Avenue, New York, or a home in Iowa 
''where the tall corn grows," or a home down in 
Dixie Land ; no matter where it was, it was the best 
place on earth to us. 

Mine was down in Georgia where the limbs bend 
with juicy peaches and ''where the watermelons 



202 WAR MEMORIES 

grow;" where stately pines are swayed by mountain 
breezes on the north and kissed by the ocean winds 
on the east ; yes, down in Georgia was where I longed 
to be, the greatest place on earth to me, where the 
honeysuckle blossoms perfume the meadows and the 
daisies brighten the hillsides; where the sun shines 
the brightest and hearts are the lightest — my home 
down in Georgia, that's where I longed to be, in Ath- 
ens, Ga., where lived the only known sweetheart of 
John Howard Payne — Miss Mary Harden — to whom 
he sent the original manuscript of his famous verses, 
**Home, Sweet Home." Excuse me, please; but re- 
member, while writing, I went back in my thoughts 
to Bordeaux where we waited so long and became so 
homesick and I became impressed with the longing 
I had there for home. 

SERGEANT WHITE 

Quite a few casuals joined our regiment to go back 
with us. For everj^ six months overseas we could 
wear a gold chevron on our left arm and for every" 
wound received we could wear a gold chevron on 
our right arm. But, though a soldier was wounded 
two or three times or more by the same shell, he was 
entitled to wear only one wound stripe on account of 
these wounds. Occasionally we would see a soldier 
with two or three wound stripes on his right arm, 



WAR MEMORIES 203 



and seeing such a sight excited our highest admira- 
tion. 

One day while Ave were in Pont-de-la-May a soldiei' 
reported to our company who attracted the attention 
of all who saw him. On his right arm were lined five 
gold wound stripes. Never before had we seen a 
right arm almost covered with wound stripes. His 
name was Sergeant John B. White of Spartanburg, 
S. C. He was a tall, handsome soldier and limped 
slightly. He went overseas with the 1st Division. 

Some of our officers doubted White's right to wear 
five wound stripes. They could hardly see how a 
man could have been wounded on five different oc- 
casions. Five wound stripes meant that he had been 
wounded five separate times, going back to the hos- 
pital for treatment after each wound was received. 
But investigation of the strictest kind never brought 
anything to light that served to discredit Sergeant 
White's right to wear the five stripes. I talked to 
him quite a bit. German bayonets, shrapnel and 
machine gun bullets left sixty-three wounds on his 
body. To one disposed to doubt him, the sight of 
these would have been convincing. A bayonet wound 
was on his hand. Many of his wounds were so close 
together that they looked almost like one big wound. 

Just before we left Pont-de-lay-May for the em- 
barkation camp, General Pershing reviewed us. We 



204 WAR MEMORIES 

lined up early on the morning of February 27th for 
the review. It had been raining quite a bit. We 
marched by the General several times in different 
formations in mud ankle deep. After that we 
were given open ranks and the General walked by 
us so fast that his aide was almost running to keep 
up with him. Occasionally he would come to a quick 
halt and point his finger at a soldier and ask him a 
question. He asked a few who were wearing wound 
stripes where they were wounded. Some would say 
in the leg and others would say at Chateau Thierry. 
After that, the General went back to the reviewing 
stand and then called for all the officers and non- 
commissioned officers to gather around him in a semi- 
circle. The General wanted to make us a speech. 

Sergeant White was confined to his company area 
that day, but asked his captain if he could go out 
and see the review. His captain told him he could, 
but to stay in the background and not be seen. Ser- 
geant White was a fine looking soldier. That morn- 
ing he shaved close and shined his shoes, and he made 
a splendid appearance. There were a good many 
French inhabitants out to see the review\ Just as 
we were going up to hear the General's talk, I saw 
Sergeant White edge out from behind the spectators. 
One of the General's aides caught the flash of the 
five shining wound stripes and went over and met 




Seargent 
Johi B. White 



General 
John J. Pershing 



WAR MEMORIES 205 

him. As we were waiting for the General to make 
us a little talk the aide introduced Sergeant White 
to the General, and there, as they stood facing each 
other, the General's official photographer took their 
pictures. And there was Sergeant White, the big- 
gest man of the day, (although under order of con- 
finement to his company street) now standing before 
the regiment answering the questions of the Com- 
mander of the American Expeditionary Forces. 

One day as I w^as whiling aw^ay the long hours 
coming home on the boat, lying out on the deck in 
the w^arm sunshine as we were passing through the 
Gulf Stream, White came up and handed me a pic- 
ture of our General and himself. The General had 
sent him several of the pictures. I now have this 
picture and prize it as much as I do any of my many 
little remembrances of the w-ar. I often look at it. 
To me, it is a w-onderful picture. In it General Per- 
shing and Sergeant White stand face to face and five 
gold wound stripes on the sleeve of a Sergeant face 
four shining silver stars on the shoulder of the Com- 
mander of the A. E. F. 

When we arrived in New York there w^ere many 
reporters down at the harbor to interview us, and one 
began asking me questions. 

''Wait a minute," I said, ''you don't want to talk 
to me. Let me introduce you to Sergeant White." 



206 WAR MEMORIES 

I introduced liim to White and the last time I 
saw the Sergeant he wa,s surrounded by reporters. 
The New York Herald said that he was a worthy 
rival of Sergeant York. 

During the summer of 1920 while I was eating 
lunch at a restaurant in my home town, two stran- 
gers were at the same table with me and we began 
talking. When I learned they were from Spartan- 
burg, South Carolina, I told them the story about 
White that you have just read and after I finished 
one of the men looked a little sad and said, ''I'm 
glad to meet someone that knew White in the army. 
His mother is anxious to know more about his brave 
deeds. He was going to a ball game not long ago 
from Spartanburg to Greenville and was killed in an 
automobile accident. ' ' 

Sergeant White, over the top seven times, with 
sixty-three wounds in his body, none of which proved 
fatal, came home and was killed in an automobile 
accident ! Life surely seems strange, sometimes, 
doesn't it? 

White was laid to rest in Oakwood Cemetery, Spar- 
tanburg, S. C, May the 14th, 1920. His war record 
is written on his tomb with the following verse : 
''Nor shall your glory be forgot, 
While Fame her record keeps. 
Or Honor points the hallowed spot. 
Where Valor proudly sleeps." 



WAR MEMORIES 207 

TEN MONTHS' PAY 

Here's another incident before I close. A few 
days before we sailed for the States, I received $2,500 
to pay my men their February pay. This was our 
last pay day while in France, so we were paid in 
United States money. Some of them had not been 
paid in several months. One of the sergeants had 
not been paid since April, and he drew over $300.00. 
I paid him three one hundred dollar bills and some 
change. He was an ''old Regular Army Sergeant," 
and had been in the army for ten or twelve years. 
After I finished paying the men this sergeant asked 
me to keep the three hundred dollars for him until 
we arrived in New York. I got out my little note 
book and put him down for three hundred dollars 
in the column where I was noting the other money 
I was keeping for the men. 

The next morning the sergeant came to me and 
said: "Lieutenant, I want to get one of those hun- 
dred dollar bills, I need some money." 

''All right," I said, "it is yours but if I were 
you I would not spend it until I got back to the 
States." I gave him the bill and deducted a hun- 
dred in my note book. 

That afternoon he came to me again and said: 
"Lieutenant, I hate to keep worrying you but I want 
just one more hundred dollar bill." 



208 WAR MEMORIES 

''All right/' I said, ''it is yours but I wish I had 
locked it up so I couldn't give it to you until we 
landed in New York." I gave him another bill, 
made a notation in my note book and he walked away 
saying, "Lieutenant, I won't ask you for the rest 
until we get on the other side." 

The next day one of the corporals came to me and 

said: "Lieutenant, Sergeant said he did 

not have the heart to come to you for his last hun- 
dred dollar bill, but sent me to ask you to please send 
it to him, that he needed it right away. ' ' 

"All right," I said, "it's his. I hate to see ten 
months' pay go in a day." I gave the corporal the' 
last bill and checked our account even. The corporal 
said as he was leaving, "The sergeant told me to tell 
the Lieutenant that he believed his luck would 
change and that he hoped tomorrow to bring the 
Lieutenant a barrel full of money." 

The next day the sergeant told me that he had 
lost it all. "Lieutenant," he said, "it would not 
have been so bad if I had lost the money to the men 
in our company, but to lose it to the company in the 
barracks next to ours certainly hurts me." 

I was informed by the time we puffed by the Statue 
of Liberty more than the sergeant's three hundred 
dollars had been taken from the "company in the 
barracks next to ours," though not by the sergeant. 



WAR MEMORIES 209 



A LITTLE DIFFERENT 

The following is a letter I wrote to my uncle, John 
F. Holden, at Crawfordville, Ga., different from the 
others I have copied: 

"Bordeaux, France, Feb. 22, 1919. 
Dear Uncle Johnnie : 

I am going to write you a letter a little different 
from most of the letters I've written from France — 
one that doesn't picture the horrors of war. 

First, I will tell you what I saw today. I saw^ the 
bodies of fifty-seven men, women and children who 
died over five hundred years ago. Their bodies were 
buried in the yard of the Saint Michel church in 
Bordeaux and were dug up a hundred years ago. 
Their bodies w^ere preserved by the veins of arsenic 
and lime in the soil. Today these bodies are standing 
upright in a circle in the basement underneath the 
tower of the Saint Michel church. The skin is still 
on the bodies, and on some of them the hair on their 
heads is preserved. You can still see the expression 
on their faces, and some who are said to have been 
buried alive have an awful expression of agony. I 
am enclosing a picture of them. 

After I saw this most w^onderful and strange sight 
I went to the ''Museum de Bordeaux." Here I 
saw the most wonderful works of art in the world. 
Some of the paintings and statues were sent down 
from Paris during the war for safe keeping. The 
museum is worth going miles to see, and I know it 
would be great for one who really appreciates art. 

Now something about the French people. I have 



210 WAR MEMORIES 

had occasion to be billeted in a number of French 
homes since the Armistice. As j^ou know, they are 
internationally known as exponents of extreme cour- 
tesy, politeness and a careful regard for the feel- 
ings of others. Really, they are sometimes too polite. 

The French are very industrious. They are slow 
workers, but regular. They are never idle, but are 
doing some kind of work all the time. But there is 
one time when all worry and work is laid aside and 
that is at meal time. Their breakfast usually con- 
sists of a big bowl of half coffee and half milk and 
a ''chunk" of bread. I say ''chunk," because they 
usually break off their bread instead of slicing it. 
Eating is an art with them. At dinner and supper 
they eat, talk and drink their wine sometimes for 
more than an hour. Wine is the national drink; 
some of it is no stronger than our grape juice. They 
are amazed when we call for water to drink. 

I am in the midst of the great vineyards of 
France. Each vine is cared for as our mothers at 
home care for their flower gardens. 

There is a network of deep and narrow canals in 
many parts of France. It is a common sight to see 
two horses pulling a boat of freight on these canals. 
They make these little rivers run where they want 
them, often changing their courses. 

I wish you could see the wonderful chateaux over 
here. They are so elegantly furnished. Most of 
them are walled in and many have lawns and beau- 
tiful large shade trees. I know they had great times 
before the war. 

It will not be lono' before I will be back home 



WAR MEMORIES 211 

and then I can tell you of France lots better than I 
can write about it. The death of Uncle Oscar Holden 
deeply grieves me. Everybody who knew him ad- 
mired him for his strong mind, high character and 
frankness. Don't suppose you want to go back to 
State 'Senate. Love to all. 

FRANK. ^' 

Most of the men in my detachment were boys, 
who had been wounded, gassed or sick; thus most 
of them had been at death's door since they landed 
in France. One of the many orders while here was 
that men who became intoxicated would be assigned 
to Labor Battalions, which would be the last outfits 
to leave France, I did not just read this order to my 
men, but I gave them talks about it. I told them 
there were anxious hearts waiting on the other side 
of the Atlantic and they were just as anxious or 
more to see their boys than they themselves were to 
get home. I am thankful to be able to say no one 
in my detachment had to be courtmartialed and 
transferred to Labor Battalions. 

Two and three times a day and perhaps more I 
look at the present wliich the men in my detach- 
ment gave me after we arrived in New York, and 
as long as I live I hope to tell the time of day by 
this watch. This watch and the one I have which 
my Great Uncle (Governor Alexander H. Stephens) 
wore during the War between the States and when 



212 WAR MEMORIES 

he was inaugurated Vice-President of the Confed- 
eracy, have a sentiment about them which makes 
them precious and priceless. 

You have nearly finished reading my little story. 
I did not do much. Many did more than I. In my 
last leifer addressed to "dear home folks," w^ritten 
from France the day before we sailed, among other 
things I wrote: ''My last letter to you from America 
expressed a desire to do my duty, and after that to 
return safely home. I have done my duty and now 
the boat {The Julian Luckenhaclie) is in the harbor 
nearby which will soon take me back. ' ' 

Yes, I yet feel that I did my duty and I find this 
feeling is the greatest reward and consolation one 
can have here on this earth. 

HOME, SWEET HOME 

We stayed in Pont-de-la-May until March 3, 1919, 
and then came our embarkation camp orders. 

The Du Sault family helped me to pass away many 
happy hours that otherwise would have dragged by 
like days. Later, I had to move nearer the company 
I was attached to and therefore had to give up my 
room in the Du Sault chateau but a Sunday afternoon 
never passed while we were stationed there that I did 
not enjoy it with them. I was rather sad the last 



WAR MEMORIES 213 

Sunday I spent in their home. They saw soon after 
I met them that I loved ''home life" and they did all 
they could to make my stay with them pleasant. I 
enjoyed their company so much, especially that of 
the beautiful girl, Madeline. She picked up quite a 
bit of English during my stay there. She was very 
amusing and witty. During my last Sunday after- 
noon with them they seemed a little sad over my 
leaving. That afternoon there was another visitor 
out to see them who had spent some years in London. 
Madeline and I decided to use her for an interpreter 
so we three went out in the front yard. I asked her 
if she was going to wTite to me and she answered 
that I had many girls in America and I would soon 
forget her. Madeline seemed a little sad, too. I 
noticed she was not as witty as usual, but she was 
only saving her wit for the last. While passing 
through the sitting room into the dining room for 
refreshments, Madeline and I lingered behind and 
when all had left the room but us, we stopped. While 
looking at each other, I took her hand and said, 
''Madeline, it's my last time with you, aren't you 
going to let me kiss you good-bye?" "Why, no!" 
she said, laughing, "why should I? I am not your 
mother. ' ' 

I have often thought of how she used to tell me of 
her envy of the happy American girls. One day I 



214 Vv A R MEMORIES 

asked her who was her fiance, and in a very sad way 
she gave the answer that so many French girls gave 
when asked that question. If you will imagine that 
the majority of Americans who went overseas had 
been killed, and that the majority of American sol- 
diers who were in the camps in the United States who 
did not go over, and all the others who had regis- 
tered for service, had been wounded — then you can 
get an idea of what France suffered. 

The next day, March 4th, we started our march 
to the embarkation camp on the other side of Bor- 
deaux. It was a long march to the eamp, but the 
distance did not matter then, because ice ivere going 
Jiome. 

During our stay in the embarkation camp we had 
many hard details in the rain and mud, but it did not 
matter then, 'because tve were going home 

We did not pin the Stars and Stripes to the high- 
est building in Berlin as we thought we were going to 
do, but we had the consolation of knowing that we 
could have done it, and Avere now satisfied and were 
going Jiome. 

All of us had not distinguished ourselves in the 
fighting as we so earnestly desired, but we knew we 
were a part of something big and great and were 
smiling and happy, for noii' we were going home. 

Some of us had the tedious all nig-ht tasks of 



WAR MEMORIES 215 



making out the passenger lists, but what did we care 
then, because ive were going home. 

We did not board a 'George Washington or a 
Mauretania, just an old slow freighter, but that was 
all right, because tve icere sailing toivard home, siveet 
home. 

And as we slowly sailed out of the Gironde river 
into the Atlantic, leaving the shores of La Belle 
Prance, I had a peculiar feeling w^hich I shall never 
forget and that last picture will ever be remembered, 
a picture that is written indelibly on my memory, and 
that picture is a girl standing on the shore waving 
us a last good-bye and wearing on her forehead a 
Red Cross. 

Have you wondered what became of Jouffrett? 
Well, I'm glad to tell you he came through all right 



THE MCGREGOR CO., PRINTERS, ATHENS, GA. 



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